Big East coaches and players explain what it means to face the defending national champions
The UConn women’s basketball team enters the upcoming season as the reigning national champions for the 12th time in its storied history. Despite this, it has been 15 years since they defended the title as a Big East Conference member.
When that last happened in 2010-11, Tina Charles had graduated and gone first overall to the Connecticut Sun. Maya Moore, then a two-time Big East Player of the Year, was entering her senior season. None of the league’s current head coaches, except Geno Auriemma, held their respective positions.
Doug Bruno’s DePaul Blue Demons faced Auriemma’s Huskies that year and in five out of their previous six title defense seasons. Connecticut was one of the nation’s top two teams in all five games.
Bruno’s last tilt with a ranked opponent came against the Huskies on February 25, 2024. Senior guard Kate Clarke, then a sophomore, scored a team-high 24 points at Wintrust Arena. The Preseason All-Big East Honorable Mention has played in just 14 games since that performance.
Clarke, like any child eagerly waiting for Christmas, looks forward to playing UConn again.
“It [playing to their best abilities] is at the highest level when we play them; we are super excited and lucky to be able to have that opportunity,” the former Michigan Wolverine expressed at Big East Media Day Tuesday afternoon. “Going out there and playing basketball and executing our stuff is super important to us.”
Bruno stepped down following the 2023-24 season after 38 years of coaching the program. Even with his retirement, however, DePaul will not back down against UConn with longtime assistant Jill Pizzotti in charge.
“It is about being fearless in your preparation and then fearless when the jump ball is tossed,” Pizzotti responded when asked about taking on the Huskies. “It is a great opportunity to play in front of a full house against the best team in the country.”
Very rarely do UConn’s opponents emerge victorious in front of capacity crowds, regardless of whether they are home or away. Since Charles left for the WNBA in 2010, the Huskies are 249-8 against conference foes in the regular season.
Only the St. John’s Red Storm and Notre Dame Fighting Irish have bested Connecticut multiple times in league play across that stretch. Muffet McGraw orchestrated all three of Notre Dame’s league victories over their rivals. Joe Tartamella was part of the Johnnies’ coaching staff when they pulled off both of their upsets.
Tartamella served as the associate head coach when the Red Storm stunned the Huskies in Storrs in 2012. 11 years and three days later, his Johnnies defeated a Paige Bueckers-less UConn in Hartford.
St. John’s winningest coach has observed a common theme across each meeting: playing the Huskies is a daunting task. Even then, the James Madison alum enjoys these contests.
“It is always a great benchmark in terms of where you are as a team,” Tartamella explained. “You know it is going to be really hard; … you know they are going to take things away from you that maybe you have not seen.”
Having been involved in two upsets against UConn, however, the 2023 Big East Coach of the Year provided candid advice.
“You cannot fuel their fire in terms of how they play by turning the ball over,” Tartamella stated. “It is one of those games where you have got to be as perfect as you can be, and they kind of have to be off, but you have got to make them be off.”
Both conditions must be met for an upset to occur; one cannot work without the other. Creighton senior Kennedy Townsend expanded on what is needed to play perfect basketball versus the oft-intimidating Huskies.
“[Facing them] makes you tighten up things you might be able to get away with [against] some other teams,” Townsend said. “It is a build-up, and you have to continue to stack those habits every day because they do get exposed when you play a team like them.”
Taking them down also requires trust from people who have faced the Big East’s best before. Most times, that confidence can come from a program’s top individuals.
“It is one of those games where you have got to be as perfect as you can be, and they kind of have to be off, but you have got to make them be off.”
– St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella on what’s needed to beat UConn
Receiving major contributions from the team’s star player may seem simple enough, especially if they average 15+ points. Against a championship-contending program like Connecticut, however, scoring might be easier said than done.
“[Auriemma] does a great job of taking away your best player and making it difficult for them,” Georgetown head coach Darnell Haney pointed out. “You have got to have a couple more best players. … You have got to have other people on the floor that can produce.”
Schools face the Huskies no more than two, sometimes three, times a season. Playing them even once, and close at that, can have a lasting impact.
“It helps prepare you for the whole year,” Haney said.
Yet these bouts, as graduate student Brianna Scott acknowledged, do not come around every day. That alone adds weight to each game a program has against UConn.
Preseason All-Big East Honorable Mention Victoria Riveria mentioned that every clash with the Huskies feels like “a championship game.” But coaches, especially Marquette’s Cara Consuegra, view them differently.
“Regardless of the label on them, national champions or not, they are who they are. They are one of the best teams in the country,” Conseugra commented. “Our job every day is to compete and position ourselves in a place where we can compete with them.”
Achieving that standard and level of recognition may feel impossible for some programs. For other teams like the Golden Eagles, it is the model they want to replicate. Goal notwithstanding, a sense of appreciation for playing the best fills all who face them.
“That UConn game is a game young kids dream of, but at the same time, basketball is basketball,” DePaul’s Meg Newman noted. “I am super excited for the opportunity, and I know my teammates are too.”
“Regardless of the label on them, national champions or not, they are who they are. They are one of the best teams in the country.”
Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra on facing UConn
Seton Hall head coach Anthony Bozzella was just as delighted when Auriemma and the Huskies won it all last April. He, like any coach in the conference, knows what Connecticut went through over the past few years.
Even if facing them results in a blowout, Bozzella has a confident prediction for the Huskies’ 12th title defense campaign.
“They are going to be right there at the end again.”
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