They were told they had to win, and dominate while doing so, so most of the UConn women’s basketball team didn’t know how to react when it all unraveled in April.
They didn’t know how to react when Geno Auriemma, their coach, the greatest winner in the history of the sport, trudged past them in a smoldering rage. Neck stiff. Jaw locked. Lips pressed thin, his eyes never moving off his shoes as he headed toward the locker room.
They didn’t know how to react when Sarah Strong, the famously reticent superstar, became the avatar for UConn’s implosion after she tore her own jersey in a spiteful rage, and Blanca Quiñonez lifted a crying Kayleigh Heckel’s chin between plays.
Farther down the court, Azzi Fudd stood surrounded by wide-eyed teammates with her arms glued to her hips, stealing glances at the clock mounted on the back of the basket that counted down the final seconds of her UConn career.
Wiping her forehead with her jersey, Fudd jogged off the court for the final time as a Husky with a blank stare as South Carolina’s “Step to the Rear” spilled out of the arena’s sound system.
It was raw. It was jarring and disorienting. It was everything top-seeded and undefeated UConn, riding on the momentum of the greatest six-game stretch in the history of the NCAA Tournament the year before, was petrified of: losing.
UConn was haunted by and ultimately crumbled under the pressure and expectation of winning. This year’s group, comprised of 10 of those same players, will be tormented by defeat as it looks up at the 12 national title banners that loom above in Gampel Pavilion.
But the only way to stop being haunted by those legends and champions in Gampel’s rafters is to join them. This group knows that; it’s been operating that way all summer.
“It’s a tough loss, it’s going to fuel us,” Strong said this summer of UConn’s 62-48 loss to South Carolina in the Final Four. “Internally, you want to be better than you were last year, and knowing how last year ended, we can’t get back to that.”
That seems to be the consensus in the Huskies’ locker room — they can’t get back to that feeling.
“The way the South Carolina game went for us this past year,” senior guard Ashlynn Shade said, “definitely played a factor in how we are approaching coming back. When you get beat up that much and feel that defeated, you want to do everything you can do when you get back for the preseason, and everything you’re doing just to be better.”
Some players, like Shade, took time away from basketball to reset their minds after the season ended, staving off the temptation to come back immediately after such a blindsiding loss. Others, like Strong, obsessively rewatched the game this summer to remember the feeling and faces of defeat.
The team has been tethered to a heavy emotional weight this off-season as they repeatedly thought about everything they did wrong to ruin their perfect season. They’ve transformed that grief into motivation, though, with a new year on the horizon.
“I do,” Strong said sternly this summer when asked if she still thought about the way UConn’s season ended. “The whole team does. We’re always thinking about last season and how it ended, but we’re also focused on what we can do better with a new team.”