What a difference a year makes.
Even with the graduation of Paige Bueckers, the UConn women’s basketball program was cruising right after another national title was fully within the grasp of a team led by the potential no. 1 WNBA Azzi Fudd and AP Player of the Year Sarah Strong.
It all came crashing down with a loss to South Carolina in the national semifinals. The 48 points scored were UConn’s fewest in an NCAA Tournament game in 34 years.
However, that wasn’t what South Carolina’s Final Four victory is most remembered for. UConn coach Geno Auriemma confronted South Carolina coach Dawn Staley over what he felt was a lack of protocol regarding a routine handshake between the two coaches. He later complained why he “couldn’t hold it for five seconds longer.”
“People calling me the best coach that ever lived to win in 2025 to the worst person that ever lived,” Auriemma said. “You don’t believe it when they call you one of those things. You learn something every day.
“If you’re going to ask people whether it was (former LSU and Alabama football coach Nick) Saban or somebody else who’s been coaching for a very long time, somebody who’s been in the public eye for a long time, what their reason is for not wanting to do it again — that’s right there.”
The video of the exchange between Auriemma and Staley is sure to become front page news again when the teams meet at Mohegan Sun Arena on November 24. That’s not on Auriemma’s radar right now, though.
Strong leads the list of returning players for UConn, along with veteran guards KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade and last year’s top freshman Blanca Quiñonez.
Auriemma and the Huskies, Team no. 2 in the AP preseason pollapproached this offseason like any other in his Hall of Fame career.
Auriemma led the Huskies to three straight titles with Diana Taurasi leading the way in the early 2000s. Breanna Stewart powered UConn to four straight national titles from the 2012-13 through the 2015-16 seasons.
There have also been crushing losses in the Final Four when the Huskies looked good enough to add to their collection of national titles.
“Going into the Final Four last year and I think it started to show during the NCAA tournament as well, we had some deficiencies that we were able to hide for a long time (being) 38-0,” Auriemma said. “But we’d go to practice every day and our coaching staff would say, ‘Do you think we can hide this for another weekend?’ Unfortunately, we couldn’t. So when it was over, I think we as coaches realized there were just some things that we knew if they were going to happen, there wasn’t much we could do about it.”
With Fudd and Serah Williams in the WNBA, it won’t be the same team. However, this could be a deeper team. Freshman Jovana Popovic – who has played for the Serbian national team – was one of UConn’s best players in exhibition games against Syracuse and Texas. Center Olivia Vukosa – a member of Croatia’s national team since 2023, and the No. 2 recruit last year – and Marine Dursus – a guard with France’s youth national team since 2021 – are other freshmen ready to contribute. Sophomore Gandy Malou-Mamel, who spent her freshman season almost entirely on the bench, played with Ireland’s basketball team at the 2024 FIBA U20 EuroBasket Division B tournament and is expected to play more after Williams. Goalkeeper Morgan Cheli is back on the pitch after missing the 2025-26 season recovering from ankle surgery.
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Guards Allie Ziebell and Kayleigh Heckel, as well as center Jana El Alfy, averaged more than 10 minutes per game last season. That returning squad, combined with the rookie class, explains why UConn didn’t use the transfer portal even after losing two players to the WNBA.
“When you come out winning a title, it’s definitely a great feeling,” Shade said. You don’t get that overwhelming feeling like when you don’t win. It’s definitely different, and the way the South Carolina game went for us last year, that played a factor in how we’re going to come back. When you get beat so much and you feel defeated, you want to do everything you can when you come back, in the preseason and in every training session, just to try to be better.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
