Monday, March 11, 2024. The No. 10 UConn women’s basketball team, the Big East regular season champions, battled the sixth-seeded Georgetown Hoyas in the Big East Tournament title game. For the second evening in a row, redshirt junior Paige Bueckers took the opening tip-off for the Huskies. This time around, she went up against Georgetown’s six-foot-three center Ariel Jenkins.
Both teams’ paths leading up to that tip-off were filled with triumph and tragedy. This is the tale of two of the most emotion-provoking storylines in women’s basketball and how they made it to that point.
Injuries have plagued UConn as far back as the 2021-22 season. The initial blow came on Dec. 5, 2021, when Bueckers suffered a non-contact knee injury in the Huskies’ double-digit victory over the then-No. 24 Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Gampel Pavilion fell dead silent as she stumbled to the ground.
Connecticut was without Aubrey Griffin or Azzi Fudd in that game, but the woes worsened as that season progressed. Despite dealing with adversity ranging from Griffin’s season-ending back surgery to Dorka Juhász’s wrist injury in the Elite Eight, however, the Huskies reached their 12th national championship game.
Even though they came up short against the South Carolina Gamecocks, the injury misery carried over. It started when Bueckers tore her ACL in August of 2022. Come the following January, UConn had to postpone a contest due to not having enough healthy bodies. They spent most of the season with fewer than 10 players. Without the 2021 National Player of the Year on the court, the Huskies’ campaign ended in heartbreak in the Sweet 16.
Connecticut entered the 2024 Big East Tournament with eight players available. It lasted just 24 minutes as Aaliyah Edwards took an elbow to the face. Edwards wailed in pain on the floor following the contact, her cries resonating across a silenced Mohegan Sun Arena. Without her on the court, the Huskies turned into the juggernaut that had gone undefeated in Big East play.
UConn outscored the ninth-seeded Providence Friars by 27 points in the final 16 minutes. As if one explosive performance was not enough, the Huskies went wire-to-wire and held the fifth-seeded Marquette Golden Eagles scoreless in the final 14 minutes the following afternoon. Their defense allowed just 47 points across a 56-minute span en route to their 20th consecutive conference tournament championship game appearance.
Meanwhile, the Hoyas had parted ways with former head coach James Howard, who went 66-108 in six seasons following the 2022-23 campaign. Georgetown replaced him with Tasha Butts, who previously served as associate head coach for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Five months after being hired, however, Butts had to step away from the program, doing so to focus on her fight against breast cancer. On Oct. 23, 2023, two weeks before the start of the season, Butts tragically passed away at the age of 41.
Rather than let her passing wreck what she had developed, interim head coach Darnell Haney and the Hoyas built on her foundation with one goal in mind: Make the Big East Championship game. Georgetown went 12-1 versus non-conference foes and 9-9 in Big East play during the regular season, with “Tasha Tough” pins and patches supporting them every step of the way.
Once the Big East Tournament hit, the Hoyas started catching the nation’s attention. Georgetown shook up the bracket early when they held the third-seeded St. John’s Red Storm to 44 points and 19 total rebounds in the quarterfinals. If that was not enough of a statement, then containing the second-seeded Creighton Bluejays to a season-low 46 points and a 26.3% clip from the floor in the semifinals on March 10 certainly was.
The Hoyas allowed just one Bluejay, Morgan Maly, to score in double figures as they advanced to their first-ever Big East Tournament championship game. It was only poetic that Georgetown made history on what would have been Butts’ 42nd birthday.
“She just was a loving, tough-minded, high-spirited woman with a great family,” Haney commented afterward. “I am just so proud of these young women for honoring her the way they do.”
The championship contest itself was, sadly, anticlimactic. Connecticut controlled the game from the start behind an 11-0 run, winning their 22nd Big East Tournament title in a wire-to-wire 78-42 win.
The emotions did not stop at the final buzzer, however. Following the contest, Big East Coach of the Year Geno Auriemma felt pride and joy in his team’s resilience.
“They were committed to [the idea that] we are going to do whatever we have to do to win,” Auriemma stated.
Neither Bueckers, the Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player, nor Big East All-Tournament Team selection Nika Mühl displayed much emotion during the championship celebrations. Once they entered the press room, their emotions took a different turn. Mühl and Bueckers’ sadness, in Auriemma’s eyes, was a culmination of realizing the end was near while considering their impact on the team.
“They [Bueckers and Mühl] are comfortable in their own skin, and everything about them is real. So the emotions are real, the feelings are real,” Auriemma explained. “The most passionate people and the most invested people are usually the ones that react like that.”
As for the Hoyas, this chapter of their incredible story ended on a high note. Athletic director Lee Reed went into Georgetown’s locker room after the game, announcing that the university was in discussion to officially make Haney the head coach.
Graduate student Graceann Bennett, who had been through thick and thin across her five-year collegiate career, made that news public at the postgame press conference.
“I am so elated and overjoyed for the future of the program and just so grateful that I had this opportunity to learn from [coach Haney] for the year,” Bennett said.
Basketball, and sports in general, bring out a variety of emotions in all who participate in them. From joy to sadness, there are a wide range of feelings that one can have while playing the game. What transpired in the moments leading up to that Monday night in Uncasville will be remembered by all who witnessed it firsthand.