UConn women’s basketball title quest harkens back to Husky glory days

Indianapolis –Hinkle Fieldhouse is full, double the size of the previous highest crowd this season. Women Butler has played basketball for 50 years and this is their first selection. The communities have sufficiently narrowed to capture ECG, closed by children who hold the signs and parents holding mobile phone cameras.

Connecticut Huskies came to the city. And that still means something.

“Our players are used to it,” said Geno Auriemma later, which of course they are. Before there was Caitlin Clark, a tour show Uconn took place, playing the big crowds where he wandered. Between Clark, who turned into Taylor Swift with a jump and the emergence of other tradable powers from South Carolina to LSU to UCLA, the female game exploded and Huskies did not have the main scene for themselves. Why you even needed two hands to count defeats in recent seasons and NCAA confirmed the reputation that it can actually have four without Connecticut. Once in 16 tournaments, that’s. And it has been eight years since the last national championship. In the years Huskies, who feels about 30 years. Enough to hit Auriemma Big 7-0.

⛹ More female basketball ⛹

However, the program, which rolled here on Saturday and destroyed Butler, 86-47, is snuffing days of fame. The team that defeated South Carolina by 29 points on its own Gamecocks queue and lost once from Christmas destinations to be prepared for March. Anyone who has the smallest acquaintance with the female university basketball, except for all the little girls in the PAIGE BUECKERS jerseys No. 5 here on Saturday, knows what it could mean.

“It is harder and heavier and heavier to predict with any degree of certainty in today’s world, what you think will happen further,” says Auriemma after the game. “Do we have the ability as if we sometimes exhibited this year to have a really good running in March?” I believe it. Should we look it all the time this season? No. But a great thing at the NCAA tournament is that you don’t have to have it in a regular season, you have to have it for three weeks.

“I would say that right now we are not exactly where I want us to be, but I’m quite excited about March.”

Connecticut has always been recognizable by its remarkable numbers. He is still. . .

The average winning margin this season 29.4 for this record 26-3. 51 % team shooting. 21.6 helps the game. Huskies had 37 goals and 28 assists against Butler. Bueckers and its diameter 18.7, back to health. Freshman Sarah Strong Shooting 57.4 percent and gaining eight rebounds for the game, the latest star in the Galaxy. Azzi Fudd also back.

Then there is a historical tonnage of the past. 23 last four and 11 national championships. 601 consecutive weeks, which are currently included in 1993. Another active longest stripe is South Carolina at 240. If Huskies closed the program today, Gamecocks would have to stay in the ranking for another 15 or more years.

There is Auriemma, with his 40 years at work and his 1,239 victories, more than any college coach, chooses gender. And this little nugget: Huskies played 181 different teams in its four decades. He has a record of a record against two of them. Is 0-3 against La Salle and 0-1 against the US International, but we are talking about games in the 80’s.

And there are scenes like this weekend, when people waited out in 20 degrees an hour after the game, hoping they would get an autograph or a picture or at least a wave. Caitlin Clark made such scenes famous, but Connecticut experienced such things for ever. Auriemma will never be too old to take it for granted, or there is no excitement in the afternoon like Saturday when the Butler program on average 1,430 packages for 9,100 packages.

“A few years ago, whenever I would be contacted, especially a friend who just got the main coaching work or coaches I knew for a long time that started the program, I would always say to them,” Hey, let me know when you are ready (host Uconn). I won’t ask you, but if you call me and ask me, I’ll say yes. ”

“I still get a kick out, I’m still doing it today, I’m going there and letting the place sold out.” That hasn’t changed a bit. I love it for many reasons. One is an excitement for high school players to go to college and experience it. And the way I have been looking at it for years is, many of these people may have never been personally at the university basketball game. Certainly not on the basketball game Butler personally. Does this mean that 9,000 will appear on the next game? No. But if the next 300 or 400 people who were here today decided they wanted to return because they had a great time, it’s for me how you grow a game. I think we have done a lot to exhibit a lot of fans of the game, and I think fans have captured and like what they see. ”

Cinderelllas: The lowest seeds advance to every round in the history of the NCAA Basketball Tournament

Uconn’s Mighty Shadow has won a company in the face of eight years without the title and long -term injuries of the best players. Huskies, however, did not go anywhere and it can be a team that reminds the world. Senior coach, built by Juggernaut, welcomes another march.

“It was quite a privilege and had an extremely positive impact on my life. I don’t feel 70 and definitely don’t eat. ”

Geno Auriemma has been asked if he feels his age, as is approaching the march: pic.twitter.com/tooewwpnm7

– UConn On Dreams (@Snyuconn) 22 February 2025

“I feel 70?” When I’m in practice, no. When I train games, no, no, ”he says. “On a three -hour bus ride back from Seton Hall, yes.” When I see a lot of my friends with whom I went to school, I think how happy I could spend most of the time with young people. It was quite a privilege and had a huge and positive impact on my life. I don’t feel 70 and definitely not.

“It is said that you are only young, but you can be forever immature.” I am proof of that; I still feel young and I am much more immature than I would like to be. ”

And he is still a coach with the most victory, most of the finals, most championships. What does not have?

This is the case: his last title came in 2016, two weeks after he was 62 years old. This is younger than seven coaches of the championship on the men’s side – Jim Calhoun, Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Phhog Allen, John Wooden, Lute Olson and Dean Smith. Also Tara Vanderveer, Muffet McGraw and Gary Blair on women. Win this and he will be 71 years old and gave them all the oldest coach of the National Championship.

It is not easy to find a record geneo auriemma who has not yet passed.