Less than 20 minutes after UConn smushed St. John’s to finish the regular season as the country’s lone undefeated team Sunday, Geno Auriemma shook his head incredulously when asked his thoughts on the narrative that this year’s team is better than last’s.
“I don’t like that narrative,” Auriemma admitted. “I don’t know that you take one of the top five players in the WNBA off your team and say you’re better. I don’t know how I can justify saying that.”
Auriemma’s rare unrestrained praise of Paige Bueckers, last year’s team leader, prompted a follow-up from the venerable head coach.
“There are a lot of times when I watch us play and I say, ‘that wouldn’t have happened if we had Paige,’” he added. “There are things that happen that maybe are not obvious or ascertained by other people, but we know, on the coaching staff, we know.”
Auriemma’s cryptic acknowledgment that this season’s 31-win wagon, buoyed by the All-American efforts of Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong, isn’t as deadly as the one that limped out of South Bend and Knoxville with losses last year is, for the 41-year veteran, less of a complaint and more of an honest reckoning.
“Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of playing at a real high level that matches what that team did last year – maybe that’s in the cards for them, I don’t know – but we’re a much different team than we were last year,” he concluded. “But right now, to say that we’re a better team than we were last year, I don’t buy that.”
It’s hard to find any glaring discrepancies between the two teams… superficially, at least.
Both rank first nationally in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) and weathered a top 35 strength of schedule laden with top 10 foes in non-conference play. Both teams rank first in the country in field goal percentage and are top 2 in true shooting percentage, respectively. Both teams rank first in NET Rating on CBB Analytics and, through the end of the regular season, top Bart Torvik’s T-Rank system.
In fact, the 2025-26 squad averaged more points (88.5 to 81.7) and allowed fewer per game (68.5 to 75.2) in regular season play. It’s hardy and – for now – healthy nine-man rotation has given it a defensive backbone that helped force 212 more turnovers (774) than field goals allowed (562), according to Puneet Nanda on X.
“We have a few more players [than last year] that we can trust and put on the court,” Auriemma said. “That’s why I said I think we’re different. We have a different way of playing; we have different options.”
Peel back the analytical veneer, however, and the deeper-seated problems Auriemma alluded to on the podium Sunday rear their ugly head.
“None of those guys that I bring off the bench are Paige,” Auriemma said bluntly.
That they aren’t, and it’s unfair to expect them to match the sheer production of Bueckers’ 40-point explosion when the team was reeling against Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 last March.
Remember, last season’s team enjoyed the luxury of deploying Bueckers, Fudd and Strong – what could end up being one of the best trios in the history of the sport – on the court at the same time, all of whom acted not only as offensive batteries but as team leaders and late-game maestros.
So yes, while Fudd – who’s progressed to become a top-shelf defender on top of her unrivaled 3-point prowess – and Strong – a candidate for National Player of the Year – both return to spearhead the Huskies’ NCAA Tournament run, Connecticut will inevitably lack Bueckers’ “it” factor Auriemma described in earnest last season.
And even if (or perhaps when) Fudd and Strong compensate for Bueckers’ absence in the NCAA Tournament from a scoring perspective, having three All-American caliber players is always better than having two.
But, as Auriemma said, these Huskies are different, which allows them to go a full rotation deep into the bench, play at a faster tempo offensively and lean on their hyper-aggressive defensive mindset to build insurmountable leads before the end of the first quarter.
It’s worked so far, as evidenced by an opening night win over now-top 10 Louisville, a 32-point blitzing of Ohio State, a 26-point shelling of Iowa in Brooklyn and a 30-point detonation of Tennessee. If these Huskies are capable of running the table, however, something Auriemma alluded was a possibility Sunday, they’ll have to do it without the player that defined last season’s run.