No. 4 UConn women travel to DePaul with Big East title still within reach

UConn coach Geno Auriemma was talking to his good friend Doug Bruno, the DePaul coach and fellow women's basketball giant, on the phone this week. What they discussed has yet to be determined."We have a way of talking a lot without necessarily talking about anything in particular," Auriemma said with a laugh. "We really don't have much to talk about that has anything to do with anything important."Now, things become important again.Fourth-ranked UConn (24-5 overall, 16-2 Big East Conference) travels to Wintrust Arena in Chicago to meet DePaul (19-7, 10-7), beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday (Ch. 61).UConn needs a victory to clinch at least a tie for the Big East regular-season championship and the top seed in the upcoming league tournament. The Huskies are coming off a 69-64 loss to St. John's on Tuesday in Hartford and have a one-game lead over Villanova for first place."I just think St. John's kicked our (butt), flat out, in every area," Auriemma said at the Werth Family Champions Center on Friday before leaving for Chicago. "Coaching-wise, aggressive-wise. Ran their stuff better. Played harder defense. Came after us."Auriemma said the loss to St. John's was unexpected. The Huskies were what the coach called "locked in" for a win over Villanova on Saturday, giving themselves a two-game cushion atop the Big East with three games remaining.Sophomore Caroline Ducharme has returned to the lineup following a concussion, with superstar Azzi Fudd yet to be cleared following the latest injury to her right knee.Fudd was leading the team in scoring with 17.9 points per game when she was injured in a collision Jan. 15 in a game against Georgetown. Fudd has missed 20 games this season.That left UConn, at times, with seven players, the minimum roster-size allowed by the Big East. The starting five is all averaging more than 32 minutes per game, while point guard Nika Muhl leads the way at 36.4."We've had a couple of those (games) this year where everything's disjointed, everything's out of sync," Auriemma said."There will be times where it looks so good and so fluid and so connected that from a coaching standpoint you go, 'Well, we didn't do anything different. We didn't prepare any different. So how's it go from that to that?'"UConn will return home to Gampel Pavilion on Monday for its final regular-season game against Xavier, what will serve as Senior Night for graduate transfers Dorka Juhasz and Lou Lopez Senechal. The Big East tournament will be played March 3-6 at Mohegan Sun Arena.Juhasz (14.4 points, 10.1 rebounds) said the Huskies have had a positive response since the loss to St. John's. "I think we're at the time right now where there's no more talking things out. It's now or never," Juhasz said. "We were having some time to reflect and just finding our how we can get out of our little funk."... I think this is the last time we have for reflection, then we have two games and we have Big East tournament. I think we're going to be great. I think everybody's on the same page, so I'm excited to see how this DePaul game goes."On Tuesday, DePaul fell just short against No. 15 Villanova, 67-64, cutting a 14-point deficit to one with two minutes remaining. DePaul's Aneesah Morrow, a 6-foot-1 sophomore forward, had game highs of 29 points and 19 rebounds. Morrow is the league's second-leading scorer at 25.7 points per game and the leading rebounder at 12.3.UConn defeated DePaul 94-51 at Gampel Pavilion on Jan. 23. In that game, UConn's Aaliyah Edwards had 23 points and 10 rebounds. Morrow had 20 points and 12 rebounds for DePaul."Going out there and playing them is hard because you never know which DePaul team you're gonna get," Auriemma said. "I don't even mean that night. I mean which DePaul team are you gonna get each quarter or after each timeout?"... Obviously, you want to win the Big East championship. That's goal No. 1, right? So we need two wins to win the Big East championship. We're going to try to get one Saturday and one Monday."Will we do anything and everything possible to do that? It remains to be seen what that may look like. We're going to prepare and we're going to go play and we're going to do everything we've done and hope that it's good enough."v.fulkerson@theday.com