The Huskies are getting healthier, but they won’t be at full strength when the new season kicks off in a month.
UConn women’s basketball’s first exhibition is exactly one month away, but the team already knows it’ll be shorthanded for it. Azzi Fudd (torn ACL), Aubrey Griffin (torn ACL) and Caroline Ducharme (head) will all remain sidelined through the start of the season, Geno Auriemma revealed on Thursday.
“None of them will be ready,” he said. “If I had to guess, I think Azzi would probably be back sooner than anybody else. Carol, I don’t know — that’s guesswork. Aubrey for sure will be after Azzi.”
Fudd tore her ACL on Nov. 14 last year and didn’t have surgery to repair the knee until a few weeks later. Auriemma indicated that the team is comfortable with her current timetable.
“Azzi is on her regular schedule,” he said. “We’re not going to see her playing 5-on-5 for a little bit.”
Still, the Huskies are hopeful she’ll be back sooner rather than later.
“Before we get into the biggest, most important parts of our schedule, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she can be with us,” Auriemma said.
Meanwhile, Griffin went down with a torn ACL in January, so she’s a few months behind Fudd in her recovery. It was always unlikely that she’d be back in time for the new season.
“Aubrey hasn’t hardly done anything, so she’s probably the one that’s (furthest off),” Auriemma said.
As for Ducharme, she’s been plagued with head issues since her freshman year. She played in UConn’s first four games last season before bad turbulence on the team’s flight to the Cayman Islands shut her down the rest of the way. Ducharme remains out indefinitely.
“She’s trying to do as much as she can and then we try to see how it feels,” Auriemma said. “But for her, it’s all kind of guesswork still. We’re see where that takes us.”
Morgan Cheli was the only other player who didn’t participate during the portion of UConn’s first official practice open to the media. While Auriemma didn’t specify why the freshman was out, he mentioned that she was dealing with a hamstring issue over the summer. Even with the ailment, Cheli should be on the floor for the Huskies’ first game.
“Morgan’s had some lingering stuff from last year in high school and she’s doing more and more every day,” the coach said. “I would expect Morgan to be (ready for the start of the season).
Even with the bad news, the Huskies are still getting healthier as a team. Jana El Alfy (achilles) and Ayanna Patterson (knee tendinitis) were both full participants in the 30-minute window of practice that media watched. The arrow appears to be pointing up for those two.
“I’m happy where both of them are at this point,” Auriemma said.
There’s more good news, too. Even though UConn currently has four players sidelined, it still has plenty to practice with. That’s quite a change from the end of last season, when the Huskies had just eight healthy players left on the roster.
“We have 10 players on the floor most of the time, so that’s a that’s a huge bonus relative to where we were,” Auriemma.