UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma spent the early part of the 2025-26 season focused on figuring out rotations and relearning the rhythm of substitution patterns with his deepest roster in years.
But with five players now dealing with injuries, Auriemma finds himself in the more familiar position of operating with a shortened bench. The Huskies had to change their starting lineup for the first time in Wednesday’s win over Providence after junior point guard KK Arnold was ruled out with a nasal fracture sustained in practice Tuesday.
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Redshirt junior forward Ayanna Patterson is also out with a concussion suffered Tuesday, and redshirt senior guard Caroline Ducharme remains day-to-day with a shoulder injury that sidelined her before UConn’s game against Iowa on Dec. 21. A right knee issue has kept Ice Brady out since Nov. 9, and sophomore Morgan Cheli has yet to appear this season since undergoing surgery on an ankle injury in February.
Sophomore Allie Ziebell made her first collegiate start against Providence in Arnold’s place and played a career-high 31 minutes, but Auriemma still managed a healthy balance of playing time keeping all of the other starters below 30 minutes. There’s a chance Arnold could be back on the court when the Huskies face Seton Hall at PeoplesBank Arena on Saturday, but the team will likely be down at least four players for the second straight game.
Star guard Azzi Fudd played 28 minutes at Providence, a season high in Big East play, and said she thought fatigue started to impact the team during a sloppy second half. The team gave up 21 turnovers and committed 19 personal fouls against the Friars, both of which were season highs, and Auriemma said he felt the fatigue was much more mental than it was physical.
“We’ve been pushed a lot more than we were pushed (Wednesday), so I don’t think we were tired,” Auriemma said. “The turnovers were lack of concentration probably. You get mentally just, I don’t know, you just play bad basketball for a while. … If we had 21 turnovers against one of the top 10 teams in the country, then we’re in trouble. We only average like 11 or 12, so it was really out of character for us today.”
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Seton Hall hasn’t won a game in Connecticut since 1984, the season before Auriemma was hired, and the Huskies have won every meeting in the series since 2010 by at least 24 points. But one of the biggest challenges UConn faces during conference play is maintaining focus even in matchups where it can comfortably beat the opponent on sheer talent, and Auriemma aired his frustration with the team’s lapses after the otherwise dominant showing at Providence.
“It doesn’t happen often, but it happens … we’ll figure out different ways to be dumb, but we won’t be dumb like this (again),” Auriemma said. “Everything that you do and every game you play, you’re trying to create some kind of habit, like, ‘This is what I do in these situations.’”
How did the UConn women do without the starting point guard? Not very well, says their coach
Seton Hall brings one of the better offenses in the Big East, and their backcourt could give the Huskies a real push especially if Arnold is unavailable. Junior guard Savannah Catalon is averaging a career-high 14.3 points and 5.2 rebounds, and Florida State transfer Mariana Valenzuela has had an instant impact for the Pirates with 12.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.
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Seton Hall also brought back star point guard Jada Eads, a 2025 All-Big East first team selection, and the sophomore has been the team’s best player in most of its biggest matchups. Eads led the Pirates with 16 points and seven boards in their eight-point loss to NC State on Dec. 7, and she put up a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds when they dropped an 82-78 heartbreaker against No. 25 Princeton.
UConn can once again lean on its highly disruptive defense against a Seton Hall team that averages nearly 15 turnovers per game, but the Pirates have a chance to stay competitive if they can heat up from 3-point range. The perimeter has been the only real weakness in the Huskies’ defense with opponents shooting 31.3% against them on average, and they allowed Providence to go 8-for-19 beyond the arc on Wednesday. Seton Hall is 5-0 this year when shooting 40% or better from deep, and Catalon and Valenzuela are both averaging above 40% on the season individually.
“We work a lot in practice on our defense, whatever defensive stuff we’re running, so it’s just trusting that if I rotate there (someone) is going to be the next rotation,” Fudd said. “If I go for a steal, the person behind me will have my help if I miss it. I feel like, along with the communication, it’s just trusting that we have each other’s backs … and making sure we’re constantly fine-tuning everything we’re working on.”
How to watch
Site: PeoplesBank Arena, Hartford
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Time/date: Noon, Saturday
Team records: UConn 14-0 (5-0), Seton Hall 10-4 (4-1)
Series record: UConn leads 61-10
Last meeting: 91-49 UConn, Feb. 19 in South Orange, N.J,
TV: FS1
Streaming: FOX Sports app
Radio: UConn Sports Network on FOX Sports 97.9
