UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, whose No. 3 Huskies are set to start their delayed season Saturday, said Thursday that he worries about the mental readiness of his team and thinks most coaches nationwide feel the same.
"I think the mental part is what's the worst part about it right now," Auriemma said of the effects of COVID-19 on college athletics. "I don't know where anybody is mentally. Not just our team, I mean any team. I can't imagine that any coaches are sitting out there saying, 'My team's in a great place mentally.'
"The ability to focus and concentrate on the task at hand has been very, very, very difficult. Maybe all the interruptions, maybe all the uncertainty, maybe being cooped up for all these weeks and months. They talk about cabin fever that people have. I gotta believe that college basketball, college sports -- these kids are all suffering from COVID fever. They don't actually have the virus, but they've got all the things that the virus does to people. Maybe we just need a game."
The Huskies will get that at 1 p.m. ET Saturday, as UMass Lowell visits Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Connecticut. There's familiarity between the programs -- longtime Huskies assistant Shea Ralph is married to UMass Lowell head coach Tom Garrick. And there will be the familiarity, finally, of a competition.
UConn went 29-3 last season, winning the American Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles for the seventh consecutive year before moving to the Big East. On Nov. 23, the Huskies temporarily suspended team activities after a member of the program tested positive for COVID-19.
The Huskies were able to return to full practices on Dec. 3, but they've had another schedule setback. Their Dec. 15 game against Butler was postponed because of a positive test within the Bulldogs' program. UConn's next scheduled game is Dec. 17 at Seton Hall.
Auriemma said he would have supported the idea of not starting practice until January and then launching the college season in February. But when it seemed as if most schools wanted to get started closer to normal time, he didn't object.
"When we heard Nov. 25 was going to be the starting date, everyone was really excited," Auriemma said. "There was a lot of energy and excitement. As we moved along and we started to see games postponed, people became a little more anxious. It's been pretty much all-consuming, this worry about, 'What next?' There hasn't been a lot of things to take your mind off this. That's why it's so important that we do play Saturday. And beyond that, there will be the worry about the next one."
Some teams, including No. 2 Louisville, have played as many as five games. UConn guard Evina Westbrook said it has been odd to watch so many teams playing when the Huskies have not.
"We're making sure that we are watching games, especially teams that we have a great potential of playing against," said Westbrook, who sat out last season after transferring from Tennessee and will see her first action with the Huskies on Saturday. "I think, if anything, it gives us a different perspective of how we want to play and how we don't want to look."
Westbrook, who is from Salem, Oregon, said she and her teammates have accepted they won't be going home for Christmas because of the virus.
"It's definitely hard. But no one was [going to risk] coming back to quarantine and missing games," she said. "That right there just says we're all locked in with each other. We're so close as a team that we're going to be just fine."
Still, Auriemma said he has his concerns.
"What if they do stay here and there's still no games because something happens?" he said. "Maybe that's what we should have done in the first place -- just told them to stay home the whole first semester, and we'll practice the whole month of January and play Feb. 1. Right now, they're not going home for Christmas, and that sucks to be honest with you. But that's life."