The UConn women’s basketball team has won 32 consecutive games against Big East opponents, but the last time the Huskies were upset in conference play was against St. John’s in 2023 with superstar Paige Bueckers sidelined by an ACL tear.
No. 7 UConn (15-2, 6-0 Big East) could once again meet the Red Storm (11-5, 1-4) without its best player on Wednesday at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, New York. Bueckers, who is averaging a team-high 19.9 points plus 4.3 rebounds, four assists, and 2.1 steals, has missed the Huskies’ last two games with a left knee sprain suffered against Villanova on Jan. 5. Coach Geno Auriemma compared Bueckers’s injury to the knee sprain suffered in December by teammate Azzi Fudd in December, who sat out of three games and played just eight minutes in a fourth before returning to the starting lineup.
“In all these things there is a timeline, but the timeline depends on how you handle your business,” Auriemma said last week after Bueckers’ injury. “How hard are you rehabbing? How fast does your body heal? How quickly do you feel mentally comfortable that (you) can run, cut, and do the things that you want to do. That’s different for everybody. I think there’ll be a day — sooner, I think, rather than later — where (Paige) goes, “I’m playing,” and that’s all there is to it.”
How UConn women showed growing confidence in comeback win at Georgetown without Paige Bueckers
Fudd hit her stride in the two games without Bueckers averaging 22 points shooting 62.9%, and adding the fifth-year superstar back into the mix could open up even more opportunities for Fudd. Auriemma estimated last Tuesday that Bueckers would return to the court this week, so it’s certainly possible the redshirt senior will play at St. John’s. Sixth-year forward Aubrey Griffin, who has been out over a year with an ACL tear, is also expected to make her 2024-25 debut in mid to late January, which will add another wrinkle to the team’s ever-shifting personnel combinations.
“Everybody just has to do their thing — this is what you do, and this is what you know, and the game is the game,” Auriemma said. “We’ll figure out a way to function, and then we’ll readjust when (Paige) comes back. It’s like we’re in a constant state of making adjustments and readjustments … We’ll figure it out. That’s what we do.”
The Huskies dominated Xavier 81-27 in their first game without Bueckers last Wednesday, but they had a scare trailing by as many as eight points in the first quarter against Georgetown on Saturday. Fudd scored 21 points on five 3-pointers to power UConn back to an 18-point win, but Auriemma has been frustrated since the start of the season by his team’s inability to execute consistently for four quarters.
“I did remind them how fast this goes, that it just flies right by you, and you really don’t have the opportunity to just go out and work your way back in and mail one in and say well, I’ll wait three more games to get myself going,” Auriemma said. “That’s why I’m so impatient in practice and why I’m so demanding of them to get better fast, because I know how fast this goes by … I want them to learn to trust themselves and trust each other. Obviously they know if we have any chance to do something great this year, Paige has to be a part of it, but that doesn’t mean that they should pass up opportunities to get better.”
St. John’s but enters Wednesday’s game with just one Big East win over Xavier, but the matchup is poised to be a slugfest between the two best scoring defenses in the conference. The Red Storm are giving up less than 54 points per game behind only the Huskies, who allow 51.7, and the two squads rank in the top 30 nationally in turnover margin. Both teams are also forcing at least 18 turnovers per game against their opponents, but where UConn can separate itself is with its ability to turn those takeaways into offensive production. The Huskies scored 42 points off turnovers against Xavier and had 10 in their second-half comeback at Georgetown after entering halftime with just four.
“I think we play hard and we try hard, and we take some risks,” Auriemma said. “When there’s a certain lineup out there, we do create opportunities for ourselves, but sometimes teams just throw it away for whatever reason. We’re out there trying to figure out, can we press this team or not? If we can, we just keep doing it, and if we can’t, then we stop, but what we’re getting is it forces them to play with a lot of energy, and it forces them to extend themselves. I like that, and it carries over into everything else that we’re doing.”
How to watch UConn women’s basketball at St. John’s
Site: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, N.Y.
Time/date: 7 p.m., Wednesday
Series record: UConn leads 49-18
Last meeting: 78-63 UConn, Feb. 4, 2024 in Storrs
TV: SNY
Streaming: SNY.tv, FOXsports.com
Radio: UConn Sports Network on Fox Sports 97.9
