Before UConn women’s basketball’s game at SMU last week, the Huskies took a team trip to a Dallas Mavericks game. At one point, Geno Auriemma pointed out the Mavs’ 20-year old superstar, Luka Doncic, to freshman Anna Makurat.
‘You see that kid down there?” he asked her. “He’s only a year older than you.”
Doncic is averaging 29.1 points, 9.7 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game as the youngest player on his team. He isn’t worried about making mistakes or deferring to older players. Auriemma wants Makurat to play the same way.
“He probably doesn’t come here and wonder ‘Should I shoot, should I not?’ Should I pass should I not? You can all the way over here to prove something, to play basketball. So start playing basketball,” Auriemma said. “Stop worrying about ‘what if, what if, what if; should I, should I, should I?’ That’s what she was trapped in.”
Makurat came to UConn with a well-developed offensive game after playing in Poland’s professional league but so far, she’s struggled to make an impact. She started four of the first five games of the season, but lost her starting spot to Kyla Irwin after the narrow win at Ohio State. Makurat has only averaged 4.8 points per game, though she has contributed elsewhere with 3.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.
But since Auriemma challenged her in Dallas, there’s been a difference in Makurat.
“These last three or four games, she’s been really good,” Auriemma said. “Whether the points have been there or not, it doesn’t matter. I thought she battled her butt off against Baylor. She’s playing with a lot more confidence.”
The message wasn’t limited to just Makuart. He made a similar comparison to Aubrey Griffin, just with a different example.
While UConn gets the top recruits in the nation most seasons, Auriemma often cites the players’ lack of egos as compared to their male counterparts as one of the benefits of coaching in the women’s game.
But when it comes to his current freshman class, Auriemma would be more than happy to deal with the egos.
“This is one time I wish, for the most part, high school girls coming into college as freshmen were more like high school guys in college as freshmen,” he said. “I wish Aubrey had that mentality: ‘I’m going to go to college, I’m only going to be there one year, I’m going to be a one-and-done, I’m going to shoot it every time I touch it and I’m going to try to average 25 a night and I want to get drafted in the first round.” I wish they were like that.”
But for many freshmen, coming to a program like UConn can be intimidating. They walk into the gym and see the names of all the greats that came before them along one wall. The national championship banners cover another. Young players are often happy to let the upperclassmen run the show while they take a role away from the bright spotlight.
“Instead, (freshmen) come and they go ‘Do you think I should shoot? What do you think if I drive, would that be okay?’ They so desperately want to be able to do the right thing and blend in and fit in with their teammates that it drives you crazy because you’re constantly pushing them to do more,” he said.
While Makurat is yet to have a breakout performance, Griffin has already shown how good she can be even as a freshman. Against Seton Hall, she scored 25 points -- tied for the fourth-most points in a game by any Husky this season. Megan Walker has surpassed that total twice while Olivia Nelson-Ododa has done so once.
As talented as UConn’s Core Four is, the length of the Huskies’ run in the NCAA Tournament might not be determined by them but by how much improvement the freshmen can make between now and March. Auriemma believes they can do it, now he just needs to get it out of them.
“If I could get Aubrey to play like a sophomore or junior in the next two months, we’d be 100 percent better as a team. That’s how good she is,” he said. “It’s a work in progress. I’m going to have to show her film of all these guys playing college basketball. Try to act like those guys. Not exactly, but try to act like those guys.”
