UNCASVILLE — Twelve years ago, Kim Barnes Arico left Gampel Pavilion with the win of a lifetime. The coach at St. John’s, she took her team into the belly of the beast went right for UConn’s jugular. Neither then, nor now do Big East teams do that.
UConn did end up winning it all that year, 2013.
“Geno (Auriemma) is one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met,” Barnes Arico said. “But when I got back on the bus that night, he was one of the first to call and say he was proud of me.”
She was the toast of New York that week, even WFAN put her on the air in drive time, and has since ended up at Michigan, with Big Ten riches to back her coaching acumen. Now she was at Geno Auriemma’s doorstep with a young, hungry team all over again. And he knew he’d be in for an uncomfortable Friday night at Mohegan Sun. In fact, after watching Michigan wallop Notre Dame, he texted Barnes Arico and suggested they cancel the game and just go to the casino. He felt a “pit in his stomach all day,” he said.
“Sometimes we play Top 10 teams and we make it look like it’s the easiest thing in the world and go out and win by 30,” Auriemma said. “This team, Michigan, is way too much like us, and I don’t like playing teams that are just like us. Hopefully, we won’t see another one like them for a while.”
Like that St. John’s team a dozen years ago, sixth-ranked Michigan wasn’t intimidated, wasn’t shell-shocked when UConn threatened to blow them out in the first quarter. Barnes Arico pulled some levers, switched to a zone defense, forced UConn to play her way, and by the end of the game the Huskies were no longer in sync and caught up in a Final Four caliber game. Auriemma had Sarah Strong, who got 20 rebounds, and he had Azzi Fudd, who scored 31 points, and they made the plays down the stretch for the Huskies to survive, 72-69.
“Obviously, he’s the best in the business, and if you want to be a good coach, you’d better study how he does things,” said Barnes Arico, who has won 61 percent of her games at five schools, across 30 years. “He gets his best players to play exceptionally hard, they play the right way, share the ball, and we pride ourselves on playing that same style. At Michigan, we don’t back down. Part of representing our university is to go all-out, to have that toughness and that grit. Connecticut plays that way and we want to come in and have that same toughness and same intensity, and I think we did for 40 minutes.”
Auriemma: “I’ve always been a big fan of hers. If she didn’t win that game at Gampel, she might still be at St. John’s, so I’m glad they won, get her the hell out of our league.”
Like it or not, this is just what the defending champs, ranked No.1 in the AP Poll, needed. UConn needs to be tested, needs to know if it can survive against teams that are too much like them. They’ll surely face such a test down the road and, based on this classic, they may well see the Wolverines again in April.
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“It means a lot,” Strong said. “I feel like its good film for us to look over and we can learn from.”
There are some things to work on, for sure, like getting rebounding from the other forwards. There are times when one could imagine that UConn would not be challenged like this in any game this season, that Auriemma could could split his squad in two and the reserves could be a top 25 team, too. This wasn’t one of those nights. It was one of those nights, instead, where “depth” proves to be in the eye of the opponent. where Kim Barnes Arico, the old nemesis from St. John’s says, “not so fast.”
UConn led 21-5 after the first quarter, then Michigan stabilized and outscored the Huskies 18-4 in the third quarter to set up the finale, largely a shootout between Fudd, 7 for 12 on threes, and Syla Swords, 8 for 14. At the end, Swords was hitting threes from NBA range, and Fudd, 6 for 6 from the line, channeled her championship calm under pressure.
“I thought we did a good job of getting Azzi a wide open three at a crucial time,” Auriemma said. “You have to trust that she knows where to go, where the spots going to be open, and you have to trust that we’re going to deliver that pass right on time. And the only way to learn if you can do those things is you have to be in those situations. It has to be right here, when it really matters.”
Quite a week of basketball, this was, even by Connecticut standards. The men lost a thriller against Arizona in a top-5 matchup at Gampel, and Central Connecticut’s men slayed another giant at Rutgers. Now the UConn women got a March-level test in November, and passed. They essentially did everything right at crunch time.
“At that point, if it goes in you win, if it doesn’t, you lose,” Auriemma said, “but you know you’re going to do it with the players you believe in the most.”
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Another trophy win for Central
Win a game, blow up someone’s season, get back on the bus. … Check’s in the mail. Yes, Central Connecticut men’s basketball rinsed and repeated the process, stunning Rutgers on its all-expenses paid (and then some) trip to Piscataway Friday night in another “buy” game. And it was stunning; the Blue Devils won 67-54, leading for more than 30 minutes.
It was also crushing for Bristol’s Steve Pikiell, in his 10th season as Rutgers’ coach, the UConn grad who was an assistant at Central from 1997-2001 under Howie Dickenman. These are the kind of losses that stick to coaches.
“I don’t know if your guys’ minds were on the right things,” Pikiell told reporters after the game. “... They certainly weren’t on the task at hand.”
Central (3-2), with losses to UMass and Quinnipiac, had never beaten a power conference team before beating Boston College a week and a half ago. Now they’ve added a Big Ten pelt to the wall in New Britain. For Coach Patrick Sellers, these are the kind of wins that stick. Resourceful, effective coaches move up the ladder, and it would be hard to name a coach anywhere who spots unheralded talent better, or gets more done with less in the way of resources.
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Storrs North/Storrs South
College football players, probably most at UConn, would prefer to play a bowl game in warm weather, have more of a “trip” at holiday time. But if I’m UConn, I’d sign for the Boston or New York bowl game anytime it’s realistic.
There were 27,000 at Fenway last December, mostly UConn fans, which is why the Red Sox, or Yankees, could maneuver to get them this year. Great atmosphere they won’t have elsewhere. I’m hearing that both the Fenway and Pinstripe Bowls are in play for the Huskies, where they could play a Big Ten or ACC opponent, or a desirable destination game in Florida, like Tampa or Orlando. The Liberty Bowl in Memphis Jan. 2, vs. Cincinnati, has been projected by some.
Sunday short takes
*The Connecticut sports scene lost a steady hand when Bob O’Dea, the official scorer for UConn men’s and women’s basketball games for 23 years, passed away after a short illness on Nov. 14. O’Dea, 75, was laid to rest Nov. 21. O’Dea was a lifelong resident of Plainville and an CCSU grad, also scored games for CCSU and the Connecticut Sun. He was a funeral director, a longtime volunteer fireman and a basketball and soccer referee to the end of his life. O’Dea was a founding member of “Timing Is Everything,” a company that trains and assigns scoreboard operators, game timers and for sporting events around the region.
*It can fall under the radar because of the time of year, but Connecticut has become an epicenter for women’s hockey at all levels. Quinnipiac (7), UConn (8) and Yale (14) are all ranked. All three, and Sacred Heart, will all be in Storrs next weekend for the Nutmeg Classic. UConn vs. Quinnipiac starts off the tournament Friday at 3 p.m., the championship game Saturday at 6:30 at Toscano Family Ice Pavilion. Quinnipiac’s Kahlen LaMarche is leading NCAA D-1 with 19 goals in 14 games.
*The Boston franchise in the new Women’s Professional Baseball League drafted UConn’s Lexi Hastings and Danbury native Sadie Zion this week. The league’s four teams, New York, Boston, San Francisco and LA, will play at one site, in Springfield, Ill., this season, with some exhibition games to be considered for the namesake cities. Seems to me there’s a nice, right-sized ballpark in downtown Hartford where a game might be enjoyable.
Can get enough of Bill Raftery doing UConn games.
*One of perks of UConn men’s loaded nonconference schedule: More Bill Raftery.
*The job and coach to watch if you’re worried about Jim Mora moving on from UConn is Washington and Jedd Fisch. That’s Mora’s alma mater — he got himself in hot water in Atlanta 20 years ago for referring to it as a dream job — so if Fisch leaves and that job opens up, it gets real.
*George Kiefer, who played on two Division II national championship teams at SCSU and was an assistant coach at UConn, coached Grand Canyon U to its first-ever victory in the NCAA soccer tournament, a first-round win over UCLA. The Antelopes play at San Diego Sunday. Kiefer, who has coached at South Florida and NC State, has coached teams in 13 tournaments.
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Last word
*In a sign of the times, Dan Hurley’s tearing of the statsheet after the UConn men lost to Arizona was taken ridiculously out of context by people who were not in the room. I asked the question, as a matter of fact, about taking positives despite what was on the scoresheet. Hurley tore the sheet with a smile, clearly joking, then gave a typically honest answer.