DALLAS — Coming together can make facing the unknown easier.
After losing Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson, and Morgan Tuck to the WNBA draft, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma didn’t know what identity his 2016-17 team was going to have or if any of the players would be able to live up to the expectations of the program.
Five months later, Auriemma and the Huskies are back in a familiar position and look just like they always have looked.
“Players change and teams change,” Auriemma said. “We’re not different than anybody else in that respect. But what happened this year was really remarkable in that the unknown was what everyone talked about in October. Throughout the whole season, it became really evident that this was a really, really good team, made up of really good players. They proved it every night. This is where they belong.”
Four-time reigning national champion UConn (36-0) will look to take the next step on the journey to its record 12th national title at 9 tonight when it faces Mississippi State (33-4) in the national semifinals at American Airlines Center. Stanford (32-5) and South Carolina (31-4) will meet in the other game at 6:30 tonight. The winners will play at 5 p.m. Sunday (ESPN) for the national title.
UConn enters the game with two first-team Associated Press All-Americans — sophomores Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier — and a second-team AP All-American — Gabby Williams — leading the way. Junior guard Kia Nurse, who was a member of Team Canada in the 2016 Olympics, and senior guard Saniya Chong, who is third in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio, round out a rotation that usually only extends to freshman guard Crystal Dangerfield and junior center Natalie Butler.
But the success of this UConn team isn’t measured in the accomplishments of one or two players. This team leads the nation in field goal percentage (52.9 percent) and assists (852). It also is ninth in field goal percentage defense (34.8) and second in 3-point field goal percentage.
Collier (20.6 points per game) and Samuelson (20.3) lead the team in scoring, while Williams (14.1) and Nurse (12.9) round out the team’s double-digit scorers.
None of those numbers mean anything to the Huskies, though. The only statistic the UConn players care about is how many games the team wins. That’s why they realized at the start of the season they had to come together to make up for the loss of Stewart, Jefferson, and Tuck.
“I think we’ve all kind of shared the leadership role,” Williams said. “Kia and I, Saniya stepped up, Lou (Katie Lou) has stepped up. There hasn’t been one person to kind of take over. I think for different aspects, you know, different people take over certain things.
Said Nurse, “Obviously what we learned from the seniors that came before us is it’s never a one-person thing to have to lead a team on their own. We decided that this year different people who weren’t in that role before had to step up and do that. It’s been a team effort the entire way.”
That chemistry has helped UConn compete in 10-straight Final Fours. The program also has reached the Sweet 16 the last 24 seasons. That can be an imposing standard to live up to, but Auriemma said Tuesday in a teleconference he recruits players who want to be in a program where they face that challenge.
This season, the Huskies faced the added challenge of having to replace three of the best players in the history of women’s college basketball. Auriemma said he learned a lesson from the 1998-99 season and didn’t try to force a situation onto this year’s team. He said he approached this season with the mind-set that the players would have to figure it out and things would have to play out naturally.
“Little by little, they started to respond to whatever circumstances were in front of them,” Auriemma said. “But they’ve never changed. They haven’t become what I hoped they would become, like edgy and really pissy, just walk out there and grab you by the throat and choke you, like some teams that I’ve had. They just walk out: Yeah, we’re probably going to win, so let’s just play. I’m sure something bad will happen during the game, but it’s OK. We’ll fix it.
“They just have this attitude like everything will be fine. Don’t worry about it. Yet they keep winning. You know how many times I go home and go, ‘Man, I hope we get our butts kicked the next game so bad,’ but it doesn’t happen. I’m happy for them that it doesn’t, but I’m pissed for me (smiling).”
Even though Williams, Nurse, Samuelson, and Collier only scored 38 of UConn’s points against MSU last season, those players understand they are responsible for carrying on the program’s tradition. That’s why they won’t take the Bulldogs for granted.
“No one really thought we’d be here, and we worked really hard to be where we are,” Collier said, “so doing it with this group would be fun. We also don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because we don’t want to overlook anyone. It’s going to be a hard game, so we can’t really assume anything.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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