Connecticut Life Is Tough Without Taurasi
Connecticut’s go-to player is long gone and the three-time defending champs have lost their stranglehold on the women’s game as they continue to search for her replacement.
Basketball A.D. -- After Diana -- has not been easy.
In her four years at UConn, Diana Taurasi led the Huskies to three straight national titles, was named the Final Four MVP the last two years and was the top pick in the 2004 WNBA draft. She provided the bravado her former teammates have struggled to find this year. The combination of her absence and increasing parity in the women’s game have pulled the once invincible Huskies back to the pack.
And for so many teams, it’s payback time.
UConn (17-6) has fallen out of the Top 10 for the first time since 1994. The Huskies have not lost this many games since the 1992-93 season. One of those losses was to perennial rival Tennessee, which snapped its six-game, four-year losing streak against UConn.
The Huskies’ home dominance also was shattered when a 112-game Big East home winning streak fell with a 65-59 loss to Notre Dame on Jan. 30.
Rutgers finally snapped its long drought against UConn last week, winning for only the second time in seven years. It knocked the Huskies out of first place in the Big East.
“It’s not like a bunch of years ago when we were the only ranked team in the league. Our league has evolved to where if you’re at home and don’t play well, you have a chance to get beat,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “That was never the case before.”
Taurasi left as the school’s third-leading scorer (2,156 points) and career leader in assists (648) and 3-pointers (318). Her jaw-dropping skills included sleight-of-hand assists and a dead-on perimeter game. She was the latest in a string of recent UConn superstars, such as Sue Bird and Swin Cash, who helped make Storrs the capital of college basketball.
“There’s been a lot of parity in college basketball the last six years, except UConn took parity and threw it out the window. They were just so much better individually and collectively,” said Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, an ESPN analyst. “It was a fantastic run of superstars. Unfortunately, Diana graduates and you’ve got a string of freshmen behind her.”
The scoring leader this year is junior Ann Strother, who is averaging 12.9 points a game and has 64 3-pointers, but she’s had to work hard for most of them. Without Taurasi to key on, defenses have turned their attention to Strother, UConn’s main outside threat this year. Strother has been finding her stroke of late, putting together consecutive 20-point games.
Among the bright spots this year has been the emergence of freshman Charde Houston, a tough matchup for many opponents. Strong and fast at 6-foot-1, the San Diego prep star eclipsed Cheryl Miller as the leading scorer in California girls history with 3,837 points.
She’s averaging 11.5 points per game and leads the team with 38 blocks. Houston put together her most complete game in Wednesday’s 67-49 win at Georgetown with 13 points, nine boards and a season-high five assists.
“Right now, everybody’s tired and beat up,” Houston said. “We have to come together and be able to lift each other up.”
Where Taurasi is most missed is in UConn’s guard play. The Huskies average 17 turnovers a game and bringing the ball up the floor these days can be an adventure. Auriemma has used 10 different starting lineups this season, alternating between freshmen Ketia Swanier and Mel Thomas and seniors Ashley Battle and Ashley Valley.
“There’s no backcourt that you can say, ‘Wow, that’s the perfect backcourt that solves all the problems.’ It doesn’t exist on our team,” Auriemma said. “So you just kind of mix and match and see what happens.”
When he does find the right combination, the Huskies are impressive. They had one of their best efforts against Boston College on Feb. 9 in an 80-55 win at home. Although the Eagles were without leading scorer Jessalyn Deveny, out for the season with a ruptured right Achilles’ tendon, BC coach Cathy Inglese said UConn’s depth cannot be ignored.
“Whether they feel like they’re struggling or not, I’ve always respected them. It’s their system and how hard they play,” Inglese said. “They have a lot of versatility. When you have a lot of good players out there that can do a lot of good things, sometimes the (guard play) can be masked.”
Lieberman said there’s no reason for UConn fans to panic, and wouldn’t be surprised to find the Huskies in their sixth straight Final Four this year.
“I think UConn will be just fine,” she said. “They’re entitled to grow and develop and do it at their own pace.”
Heading into the weekend, UConn was tied with Rutgers a half-game behind Big East leader Notre Dame and in danger of not finishing with at least a share of the regular-season conference title for the first time in 12 years -- unless Auriemma can come up with the right combination down the stretch.
“If we’re close to getting 20 from Charde and 20 from Ann every single night, we can patch it together with the other guys,” Auriemma said. “But you have to have something you can count on.”
For four years, Taurasi, the carefree kid from southern California, was Auriemma’s ace in the hole. He repeatedly summed up UConn’s success with six simple words: “We have Diana and they don’t.”
Well, the Huskies do again, sort of.
Taurasi returned to campus last month to complete her sociology degree and is practicing against her old team while preparing for her second season with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. She has brought back a brashness and intensity to the practice floor.
“She really does bring that back to us,” senior center Jessica Moore said. “She’s talking all that smack and pushing everybody around. But even though she’s killing us, she’s always there rooting for us. If we can guard her, we can guard anyone in the nation.”