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Friday, March 16
UConn thinking title despite injuries
By Greg Garber
ESPN.com
STORRS, Conn. -- Svetlana Abrosimova and Shea Ralph sit back on blue bench chairs at Gampel Pavilion, chatting quietly like the old friends they are. The two seniors watch intently as the University of Connecticut women's basketball team goes through a raucous layup drill Friday afternoon.
Ralph, wearing a white wrap around her left knee, shouts occasional encouragement: "Good job, guys. Work hard, work hard." Abrosimova, her crutches on the floor, wears a black boot cast on her left foot. She doesn't say much. Smiles flicker occasionally across their faces, but you can see the pain in their eyes.
Take away Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant from the Los Angeles Lakers, erase them. Could the Lakers still win the NBA championship? Right -- next joke.
Subtract Jason Williams and Shane Battier from the Duke men's team. They could win two or three games in the NCAA Tournament, perhaps. But the championship? Uh, no.
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Walking wounded
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UConn's casualty list for this 2000-2001 season:
Svetlana Abrosimova, torn ligament left foot (out for season)
Ashley Battle, torn ligaments left elbow (15 games)
Maria Conlon, mononucleosis (eight games)
Shea Ralph, torn left ACL (out for season)
Christine Rigby, flu (two games)
Kelly Schumacher, stress fracture right foot (seven games)
Morgan Valley, torn cartilage right knee (four games)
Keirsten Walters, surgery right shoulder (out for season)
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How about the Stanford men, minus Casey Jacobsen and Jason Collins. Sorry, not even close.
In that context, then, consider the remarkable resiliency of the UConn women. The defending national champions have lost Ralph and Abrosimova to injuries. Not only were they the Huskies' best players, if the Kodak and Associated Press First Team All-America awards are any guide, they were two of the best five players in the country last year as juniors.
Weirdly enough, no one who knows anything about women's college basketball is willing to say the Huskies, No. 1 seed in the East Regional, can't or won't repeat without them.
It will be difficult, to be sure.
The 28-2 Huskies, who begin their quest Saturday night against Long Island (16-14) in Storrs, have a tough road to the title. Georgia and Louisiana Tech, the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the East, could be waiting in the regional finals in Pittsburgh. In fact, as far as RPIs go, three of the nation's best nine teams are in the East. And then, if the Huskies are lucky enough to reach St. Louis, they would have to most likely defeat Notre Dame in the semifinals and Tennessee in the final -- all in the span of 48 hours.
"I think we're ready to go," Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma said Friday. "I think we're right where we want to be at this point in time."
That UConn remains a serious contender says as much about the unbalanced state of the women's game -- Tennessee, which already lost Tamika Catchings to an injury, probably could take the title with the additional loss of Semeka Randall, Michelle Snow or Gwen Jackson -- as it does Connecticut's unnatural depth.
After UConn won last year's championship, Auriemma, in a giddy moment, predicted that the Huskies would repeat as national champions. As it turns out, he could still be right.
Auriemma and UConn are hardly strangers to this kind of adversity. In a crisp three-minute soliloquy, Auriemma detailed the disastrous injuries that have befallen UConn in recent years heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Ralph went down in 1997 and 1998 with ACL tears, Nykesha Sales was lost for the 1998 tournament with her infamous Achilles injury and Sue Bird was out in 1999 with an ACL injury.
"Last year, we're healthy and we win the national championship," Auriemma said. "Those other teams ... they didn't handle adversity as well as they could have. This team is equipped to deal with it. There's a feeling here that I've never seen before. We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something special."
In a good place
On Feb. 1, Abrosimova came down hard on her left foot and tore a ligament in a game against Tennessee. On March 6, Ralph, in a similar sequence, suffered a torn ACL in her left knee during the Big East championship game against Notre Dame. It was her third ACL injury in four seasons. Three other players -- Kelly Schumacher, Keirsten Walters and Ashley Battle -- all have missed significant time this season.
Nevertheless, UConn seems to be coping well.
"A lot of teams look for outside things to get motivated," junior forward Swin Cash said. "We're down two people, but we have a good frame of mind. We're ready to get started."
Alan Goldberg, a psychologist and a consultant to the Connecticut athletic department, has talked informally to players on the team.
"They have had a whole lot of bad luck," he said. "But they seem to be in a pretty good place, psyche-wise."
Maybe it's because when the Huskies defeated Notre Dame, 78-76, in the Big East final, the Huskies had two All-Americans on the bench with injuries and one of the nation's top freshman -- Diana Taurasi -- sitting next to them after fouling out. Maybe it's because they responded so well to the initial loss of Abrosimova.
The experts say that Notre Dame, Tennessee and UConn -- probably in that order -- have the best chance to win the national title in St. Louis. Two other teams given a legitimate shot are Georgia and Duke.
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Stars struck
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The UConn women's team has now suffered six serious season- or career-ending injuries to its stars in the last four years:
March 15, 1997: Shea Ralph tears right ACL in NCAA Tournament.
Aug. 29, 1997: Ralph re-tears right ACL in practice and misses the entire
season.
Dec. 14, 1998: Sue Bird tears left ACL in practice and misses the rest of
the season.
Feb. 21, 1998: Nykesha Sales tears right Achilles tendon vs. Notre Dame,
ending her career.
Feb. 2, 2001: Svetlana Abrosimova tears ligament in left foot vs.
Tennessee, ending her career.
March 6, 2001: Ralph tears left ACL vs. Notre Dame, ending her career.
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When UConn won its first national title, in 1995, the Huskies defeated Stanford and Tennessee in the Final Four to finish 35-0. UConn had only two Parade High School All-Americans on its roster, Rebecca Lobo and Sales, while the other two schools both had at least 10. Since then, Auriemma has closed the gap with aggressive recruiting. Even with the loss of Ralph, there are still six former prep All-Americans on the roster: Taurasi, Aja Jones, Tamika Williams, Kennitra Johnson, Bird and Cash. Like Ralph, Taurasi and Williams are former national high school players of the year.
Much of the pressure falls on the celebrated junior class of Cash, Jones and Williams -- 6-foot-2 forwards all. With Abrosimova and Ralph in the lineup, there was wiggle room for an off-game by any or, even, all of them. Now the margin of error against a good team (any of the eight teams left after the third round) can be measured in thousandths of an inch.
Traditionally, UConn has won with high-pressure defense, but even before Abrosimova went down, the Huskies had gotten away from it. Now it will not be possible because they are down to a seven-player rotation that includes only three guards. UConn will go with Bird and Taurasi in the starting backcourt, backed by Johnson. The thin front line will be Cash, Jones, Williams and Schumacher. Foul trouble must be avoided like the plague.
In recent games, Auriemma has encouraged the Huskies to play in an entirely different way. The new thinking: a missed shot is better than a turnover. A three-point shot, by definition, carries more potential reward than a two-point shot. With Abrosimova and Ralph careening up and down the court, UConn could win with 22 turnovers. Now the Huskies play a well-spaced zone defense and attempt to reduce the game to a shooting contest. In the Big East final, UConn took 79 shots, an astounding 24 more than Notre Dame, and turned the ball over only 10 times.
The key is Taurasi, a freshman who never saw a shot she wasn't willing to take. At times it appears she's thinking about pulling the trigger when she dribbles across the half-court line. She and Bird are probably the best backcourt tandem in the nation.
Arriving early
So here is UConn's 2001-02 team, just a little ahead of schedule.
Auriemma remembers when the three highly touted juniors were about to enter their first college NCAA experience.
"I called them in," Auriemma said. "I said, 'This is the NCAA Tournament,' and they go, 'Yup.'
"I said, 'This is the time to turn it on, OK?'
"Yup."
Auriemma paused and turned to look at Cash. She grimaced, because she knew the punch line.
"And then," Auriemma said, "they don't score for like a week."
He laughed for a moment, then turned serious.
"I told them this year, 'No other team can lose two first-team All-Americans. No other team in the country can handle this. Let's go out play.' "
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