STORRS — UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma feels at times like the celebration of the 2025 NCAA Championship is never ending.
Initially it was the parade through downtown Hartford that felt like a grand finale to the team’s triumphant title run, but the festivities have stretched through the summer and into the fall. Just two weeks ago the Huskies hosted a dinner with fans where they received their championship rings, and they will unveil the championship banner Sunday ahead of their Gampel Pavilion opener against Florida State.
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Though the team still has one final banner reveal left on the calendar at PeoplesBank Arena on Nov. 16, Auriemma is glad they’re finally approaching closure on the 2024-25 season.
“You’re kind of reminded quite often that something pretty amazing happened last year, but you’re also reminded that that was last year, so for me, it’s always good to move on and not dwell on the past,” Auriemma said Saturday. “But it’s exciting for our fans. It’s exciting for the players that are here, their parents, their friends … (but) you know there’s going to be an end at some point.”
Auriemma wants his players to be able to celebrate all they accomplished seven months ago in Tampa, Fla., but he’s also trying to keep the ghost of last year’s success from weighing on them this season. During the Huskies’ historic four-peat from 2013-16, Auriemma remembers the team coming back after the first title with a hunger to win again so intense that it merged into desperation. He also saw that same “angst” in the teams led by Diana Taurasi that won three straight from 2002-04.
For better or worse, Auriemma said the 2025-26 Huskies don’t seem desperate. He’s more concerned that their dominant NCAA Tournament run will foster a fear of losing this season, and he felt it creeping in after the team’s 79-66 win over Louisville in their opener on Tuesday. UConn led by more than 20 points for nearly the entire game before a fourth-quarter slip allowed the Cardinals to get back in striking distance, and Auriemma said there was a sense of frustration that they hadn’t won exactly the way they wanted to.
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“Now they’re going to be judged differently. I told them in the locker room after the Louisville game, I said I guarantee you a majority of people are going to talk about the fourth quarter like, ‘How can you let this happen? You guys sucked,’” Auriemma said. “Now the players feel like ‘Even though we got up 28, we should have won by 40. We only won by 13. … That’s not good enough for Connecticut.’
“I don’t want them sitting in the locker room after a really good win in game one against a really good team moping that we didn’t win the Connecticut way or win the way people expect us to win. That, to me, is the biggest fear.”
Auriemma sees the danger, but he isn’t worried. When the team returned to Storrs, he said that anxious energy quickly turned to focus.
“After that first game during the film session that we were watching, they were pretty locked in. There was a real seriousness about it,” Auriemma said. “The object for us as coaches going to practice and making our break, our transition game even better than it was. Making our cuts to the basket even better than they were, because they were great. Making our movement without the ball even better than it was. Making our defense intensity even better than it was. And then little by little, you chip away at those things that happened in the fourth quarter.”
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The Sarah Strong Era has begun at UConn, and it showed in Huskies’ season-opening win vs. Louisville
Against Florida State, UConn will have an easier opponent to work out some of the kinks from its first game. The Seminoles lost all three of their leading scorers from last season, headlined by second-team All-American Ta’Niya Latson‘s transfer to South Carolina. The team also graduated second-round WNBA Draft pick Makayla Timpson, who appeared in 31 games with the Indiana Fever this season. Florida State dominated in its opener against Florida A&M, but it narrowly escaped a matchup with Georgia Southern with an 80-72 win on Thursday.
The Huskies will still be without freshman Blanca Quinonez on Sunday after she suffered a left shoulder injury ahead of the season opener, though Auriemma said she returned to practice without contact Saturday. Freshman Gandy Malou-Mamel is also questionable after missing the team’s final exhibition and the first game, while sophomore Morgan Cheli remains out indefinitely with an ankle injury she underwent surgery on in February.
With at least 12 players available, Auriemma hopes to experiment more with his rotations and reduce the minutes for his starters against Florida State. Sophomore forward Sarah Strong and redshirt senior guard Azzi Fudd both were on the floor for all but two minutes of the Louisville game, and sophomore guard Kayleigh Heckel was the only player to see more than 10 minutes off the bench.
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“(Sunday’s) rotation might be completely different than than Tuesday’s, and next Wednesday’s may be completely different than (Sunday)” Auriemma said. “I don’t want us to get too comfortable, so (Sunday) is just another opportunity to try to find which combinations do what? … There were times when we looked really small and we look pretty good. There were times when we were a little bit bigger and we looked pretty good. So how do we keep coming up with new ways to play?”
How to watch UConn women’s basketball vs. Florida State
Site: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs
Time/date: 4:30 p.m., Sunday
Series record: UConn leads 10-0
Last meeting: 85-77 UConn, Dec. 18, 2022 at Mohegan Sun Arena
TV: FS1
Streaming: FOX Sports app
Radio: UConn Sports Network on FOX Sports 97.9
