One sign that life in Connecticut is close to returning to normal is that the Huskies\u2019 men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams are both returning to the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Dan Hurley\u2019s team was selected as the No. 7 seed in the East bracket of the men\u2019s tournament Sunday night and will face No. 10 seed Maryland of the Big 10 at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Indiana this Saturday at 7:10 p.m. The Indianapolis areas is the site for the entire men\u2019s tournament this year.<\/p>\r\n
Last night Geno Auriemma\u2019s squad was selected as the No. 1 seed in the River Walk region and will play No. 16 seed High Point of the Big South Conference at 8 a.m. Sunday. The site for women\u2019s tournament is the San Antonio area. Following positive COVID test, Auriemma will remain in isolation until March 24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":170419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1918],"class_list":["post-170339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 15:59:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170339"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170420,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170339\/revisions\/170420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/170419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170339"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=170339"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=170339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Just before the women\u2019s NCAA bracket was revealed came the news that Auriemma had tested positive for COVID-19 and, per CDC and Connecticut Department of Health guidelines, will remain in isolation for 10 days and rejoin his team on March 24.
Auriemma received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on March 10 and is not experiencing any symptoms. According to CDC guidelines, he remains nine days shy of becoming fully vaccinated. The Hall of Fame coach has not had close contact with any other team member since March 12. All Tier I personnel have tested negative for COVID-19 since daily testing commenced, per NCAA Tournament protocol, on March 9.
\u201cI feel great. I don\u2019t have any symptoms, so it came as a complete shock for me and the medical staff,\u201d Auriemma told reporters during a virtual news conference about the NCAA tournament. \u201cWe\u2019ve been testing every day. I feel good and I\u2019m really, really happy that our players are going to get a chance to go down there tomorrow and prepare to play in the NCAA tournament.\u201d
Associate head coach Chris Dailey will lead the Huskies during Auriemma\u2019s absence, as she occasionally has done during Auriemma\u2019s absence, along with assistant coaches Jamelle Elliott and Shea Ralph.
\u201cWe work together, we talk every day,\u201d Auriemma says. \u201cI have complete confidence, trust and faith in CD, Shea, and Jamelle. I\u2019m an innocent bystander right now. Our program is our program. We\u2019ve been doing this since October. I don\u2019t think anything is going to change in 10 days. We know how to get ready for teams. I\u2019m not worried about that part. I just need them to win to games [so I can] help out after that.\u201d
Auriemma\u2019s players echoed his comments.
\u201cI don\u2019t think it really changes. Any other time when coach has been out she\u2019s been in and it\u2019s been the same,\u201d says Olivia Nelson-Ododa about Dailey leading the team. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to be coached under her. We all know our expectations; we all know what we need to do. She\u2019s there to keep enforcing that and to keep us going.\u201d
Concerning the tournament, Auriemma says he was not surprised Marquette was the only other Big East team selected in the brackets, noting that teams must avoid putting themselves in the position of being on the bubble by performing well throughout the season and in the conference tournament.
\u201cThe way the Big East Tournament played out, I think, hurt our teams,\u201d he says. \u201cI do think we have four or five teams that are good enough to be in the NCAA tournament. This conference had a lot of [tournament] teams in the past. This was a strange year. Next year we\u2019ll have four or five teams. The brackets are hard, but it’s supposed to be hard.\u201d
First NCAA Tournament for Seniors<\/strong>
Forward Tyler Polley says the opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament for the first time was meaningful for the Huskies\u2019 seniors. The last time the Huskies played in the NCAA tournament was five years ago.
\u201cIt means the world to me, Josh [Carlton] and Isiah [Whaley]. We\u2019ve been through a lot, so much since we\u2019ve been here,\u201d he says. \u201cTo hear UConn being called on Selection Sunday, it\u2019s an incredible feeling. I can\u2019t even describe it. It\u2019s been so long since UConn\u2019s been playing in March Madness we just felt like it was a cause to celebrate the hard work, the long hours of work, and the grind to get to this point.\u201d
\u201cThis was the main goal, this is something you dream about,\u201d adds James Bouknight, the team\u2019s leading scorer, who embraced his teammates in the New York City hotel, where the team awaited the NCAA selection announcement following the Big East tournament. \u201cI can\u2019t even explain this feeling. We\u2019re going dancing. I\u2019m just so happy. I\u2019m happy for the seniors, the freshmen, coach, and the fans.\u201d
Hurley said this year\u2019s goals were to compete at a high level in the Big East tournament and move on to the NCAA tournament. In their return to the Big East conference, the Huskies finished third in regular season standings behind nationally ranked Villanova and Creighton and reached the semifinals of the conference tournament.
\u201cIt\u2019s very gratifying thinking about where we were a couple of years ago. College basketball is more exciting when UConn is relevant and playing in March,\u201d says Hurley, who is in his third year as head coach. \u201cThe University and the state loves its basketball team. It\u2019s a beautiful moment to be back in it. The team is excited.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"