STORRS — Geno Auriemma walked stiffly and tilted his head toward his feet, further coiling the stack of rolled up papers in his hands between sighs.
The rain pelted the Werth Champions Center windows as Auriemma, now with both hands on the packet of papers, presumably No. 2 UConn’s (1-1) Saturday practice plan, looked up and gazed outside.
“You expect there to be some bumps in the road,” Auriemma rued, referencing UConn’s 77-66 loss at No. 5 Michigan on Thursday. “But the way that our defense broke down — and that never happens, that’s the one thing we can count on game in and game out — was disappointing.”
UConn, in the words of superstar forward Sarah Strong, didn’t play “UConn basketball” during its first test of the 2026-27 season against the Wolverines. The Huskies shot a moribund 8-of-31 (26%) from 3, turned the ball over 19 times and seldom pushed the tempo in transition on a spunky yet sporadic Michigan defense.
Connecticut was out-toughed and out-shot in its first of four tests against monstrous Big 10 frontcourts, and things won’t get any easier when No. 10 Iowa (2-0) comes to Storrs on Sunday boasting one of the country’s best frontcourt duos.
“If we have a better understanding of playing together and there’s some cohesion on the defensive end, that usually leads to more stops,” Auriemma said of what he’s looking to be improved against the Hawkeyes. “And that usually leads to more transition baskets for us. We didn’t force the pace of play we wanted and I don’t know why. Maybe we were mentally tired.”
Getting Strong back on the floor after she was saddled with foul trouble for most of Thursday’s game will certainly help the Huskies’ offensive attack. But Strong’s defensive prowess will be vital in containing Iowa’s duo of 6-foot-2 McKenna Woliczko and 6-foot-4 Ava Heiden down low.
“We need to be aggressive,” Strong said Saturday. “We were very passive, especially in the zone that (Michigan) played. We need to take advantage of that and have more of a post presence. I know their bigs are really good, so we have to match their physicality.”
Woliczko, a high school teammate of UConn forward Morgan Cheli, poured 22 points on Eastern Illinois last Thursday while Heiden paced the Hawkeyes with eight rebounds. Heiden, a junior, averaged 18 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game as a sophomore last season next to the now-departed Hannah Stuelke.
It’s been the play of Georgia transfer guard Dani Carnegie, though, that’s given Iowa a different dimension offensively through two games; Carnegie’s 16.5 points and 3.5 assists per game both lead the team, while her 26 minutes per game rank second behind Chazadi Wright (27.5).
KK Arnold, primarily, will be responsible for containing Carnegie.
“I feel like for us, the biggest thing is communication on defense,” Arnold said. “That’s the thing that we lost that we have to get back to. Today, we had a great practice, but going from there, we have to be able to communicate, talk, and like coach said, whatever language you have to speak in, just talk.”
UConn’s defense surrendered 27 field goals and nine 3-pointers Thursday in what ballooned from a tie game with six minutes remaining to an eventual 11-point difference.
Communication is a fix for defense, sure, but what about shot making? How does a team fix two players, Strong and freshman guard Jovana Popovic, shouldering almost all of the scoring load in a ranked game?
“The tangible things are there,” Auriemma said. “The intangible things — why the tentativeness? Why the lack of killer instinct? Well, maybe we don’t have players like that. Maybe they’re not really like that. And if they’re not, then they need to become that. What are we going to get out of our big guys so that we don’t have to rely solely on shooting 3s.”
Whatever the “fix” is for UConn, its 39-game regular season winning streak is over and its schedule is only getting harder. It needs to respond — and fast — to stay afloat with the nation’s toughest stretch of games coming up.
“I forgot what year it was, 2013 or something,” Auriemma said, referring to the 2014-15 season. “Our first two games were in California against (UC Davis and Stanford) and we’re coming off a national championship. We go out there and we play and we get beat by Stanford in a game that, we played pretty well, but they played better and we lost. Those guys were pissed, and we won 111 in a row after that game.”