![\"Men's](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mens_bball_calhoun1.jpg\")
<\/a>Jim Calhoun\u2019s team struggled with inconsistent play over the last weeks of the regular season while their coach was off the sidelines with a serious back problem, but rebounded once the Hall of Famer returned to the sideline in time for the Big East Tournament, where the Huskies (20-13) won two games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most singularly important thing is to get an opportunity,\u201d Calhoun said Sunday after the NCAA announced its men\u2019s tournament selection, which included nine Big East teams. \u201cWe had an opportunity last year and took great advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iowa State (22-10) is a team that shot nearly 750 three-pointers during the season, making 38 percent of them, an average of almost nine per game. The Huskies have not defended the three-point shot well this season. Iowa State\u2019s leading scorer is sophomore forward Royce White, averaging 13.1 points and 9.2 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have to chase them off the arc,\u201d Calhoun said. \u201cOur defense looks to be very different than theirs. It is hard to calculate, given our different leagues and different schedules. They beat Kansas State [No. 8 seed in the east] twice and beat Baylor [No. 3 seed in the south region]. We are focused on beating a very good Iowa State team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Huskies, who defied last year\u2019s tournament predictions by making a historic run to UConn\u2019s third national championship said their experience will be an advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cExperience is a great thing to have,\u201d said Jeremy Lamb \u201914 (CLAS), an All-Big East First Team selection. \u201cOur experience can only help us. We have to work on contesting shots and make them take shots other than three-pointers.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophomore guard Shabazz Napier \u201914 (CLAS), who has emerged as the gritty, vocal leader of the team, said he never questioned that the Huskies would earn an NCAA invitation.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite going through our rough stretch, I never doubted we would make the tournament,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are excited to be in the tournament and face Iowa State.\u201d<\/p>\n Calhoun added, \u201cThis is the best time of year. The kids came down the stretch and earned this. We had some tough wins that showed the NCAA we deserved to get in. Miracles are going to happen. Great things are going to happen. By miracles I don\u2019t necessarily mean something magical. I just mean that all of a sudden a team can find their selves and start playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Huskies advance, they will play the winner of the No. 1 Kentucky-No. 16 Mississippi Valley State\/Western Kentucky game in the Atlanta region. The men\u2019s Final Four is in New Orleans from March 31 to April 2.<\/p>\n The Women<\/strong><\/p>\n Even as Geno Auriemma\u2019s team (29-4) continued to win, the young squad also sought to find answers to its own lack of consistency and confidence before coming together in winning the Big East Tournament by beating Notre Dame after two earlier losses.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a freshman [Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis \u201915 (CLAS)] win Outstanding Player in the Big East tournament. If we had an experienced, really good team with lots of veterans, that wouldn\u2019t have happened,\u201d Auriemma said Monday, after the women\u2019s tournament was selected. \u201cSo the fact that a freshman had to do all that to help us win, that means going forward other people are going to have to do a lot more than they\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior Tiffany Hayes \u201912 (CLAS), the most experienced player for the Huskies, was diagnosed with stress fractures in her right foot, which began to bother her just before the Big East Tournament. She said she expects to play Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to give it all you got, especially me,\u201d Hayes said of her final NCAA Tournament. \u201cThis is my last go round. You got to leave it all on the court. You don\u2019t want your chips to end short. It\u2019s not been too bad where I couldn\u2019t play. I will be good for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n Prairie View A&M had a six-game winning streak during a 17-15 season, before earning its NCAA bid by winning the SWAC Tournament by defeating Alcorn State 63-50. The Panthers average 60.1 points per game, giving up 60.2 points. Junior forward Latia Williams<\/a> and junior guard Kiara Etienne<\/a>, both All-Conference selections, are two of the team\u2019s four double-digit scorers.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is March, this is the time,\u201d said junior Kelly Faris \u201913 (ED), who draws the assignment of guarding an opponent\u2019s top scorer. \u201cIf you get in the tournament, you\u2019re ready to go, you\u2019re excited, confident and you\u2019re going to play your best game all season. We may not know much about a lot of the teams in our side of the bracket, but it\u2019s a lot of fun to play teams you haven\u2019t played yet. We just have to expect the best from them.\u201d<\/p>\n Center Stefanie Dolson \u201914 (CLAS) said she expects to maintain the consistency she displayed in the Big East Tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cI think for me even though there are expectations or pressure, I don\u2019t focus on that. I focus on playing well, playing my game,\u201d Dolson said. \u201cThe last couple of days, I think that\u2019s where I really got [my confidence] back. Playing how I feel should play. I kind of refocused my mind and realized in order for our team to win, I had to play well. We need an inside post presence.\u201d<\/p>\n Auriemma said the NCAA Tournament remains a challenge because the most experienced teams play deep into the tournament, which includes eight Big East teams.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s bracket is hard. Winning six games is really, really hard,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cThe one difference between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournament \u2013 it\u2019s good and bad \u2013 is the number of upsets. You have so many veteran teams in women\u2019s basketball because nobody leaves early, [so] the best teams are always around at the end. You know going in, there\u2019s a pretty good chance you\u2019re going to have to beat two top five teams in the country to get wherever you\u2019re going. That\u2019s pretty much been the case every year we\u2019ve played in the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Huskies advance, they would face the winner of the No. 8 Kansas State-No. 9 Princeton game, with the winner moving on to the regional game in Kingston, R.I. The women\u2019s Final Four is in Denver, April 1-3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Madness of March continues this week for Husky basketball fans, with the men’s team beginning play in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday and the women’s team on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":56388,"comment_status":"open","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":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-56386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 12:35:30","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\/56386","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=56386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56511,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56386\/revisions\/56511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/56388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56386"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=56386"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a>