STORRS — When No. 10 seed South Dakota State completed its first-round upset of No. 7 seed Oklahoma State on Saturday to advance in the NCAA Tournament, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma felt the opposite of relief.
Coming out of the Big East, Auriemma knows better than to underestimate top mid-major squads, and he realized as soon as he saw the tournament bracket that the Jackrabbits could be the more challenging second-round matchup for his No. 2 seed Huskies. When UConn hosts South Dakota State at Gampel Pavilion on Monday (8 p.m., ESPN), it will line up against a starting five that had played together for three straight seasons and reached the NCAA Tournament all three years as the Summit League champion.
“I look at the bracket and go okay, I don’t want to see anybody in our bracket that reminds me of us a little bit. I want somebody that has no idea how we play or what we’re trying to do, and their style is completely different than ours,” Auriemma said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get that. These guys, they’re incredibly disciplined. They’ve been together a long time, so they’re experienced. … They can shoot. They’re smart. They’re the kind of team everybody picks in their sleeper/upset specials. I’m not exactly pumped about this, as you can tell.”
South Dakota State ranked 91st in the country in strength of schedule this season including league play, but the team went through a brutal non-conference slate that ranked 13th in difficulty nationally. The Jackrabbits’ resume is headlined by a 76-71 upset of No. 23 Creighton on Nov. 8, and they gave 2-seed Duke a battle in a four-point loss on Nov. 17. South Dakota State also played Oregon and Georgia Tech at the Hawaii North Shore Showcase during Thanksgiving week and traveled to 1-seed Texas in December, exiting the grueling stretch of schedule with a 2-3 record against power conference opponents.
“We played several teams who are a 1-seed, capable of being a 1-seed, capable of winning national titles over the last several years, and I do think that that helps,” Jackrabbits coach Aaron Johnston said. “It reminds you and reinforces how hard it is to play against those teams because of their talent and how well they execute and tomorrow will be no different … It gives us some focus on, here’s how we have to try and play and here’s the things that are going to be important for us to do well.”
South Dakota State is no stranger to overachieving in the NCAA Tournament, advancing to at least the second round in three of the last five tournaments with at least one upset in each of its runs. The Jackrabbits made the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history with a win over 3-seed Syracuse in 2019, and they knocked off 8-seed USC in overtime in 2023 to reach the second round.
“I think anybody that’s followed our sport certainly knows about their success,” Auriemma said. “They invited us to come and play in their tournament, and I said no way in hell am I coming up there. I think everybody in women’s basketball, and me personally, I have so much respect for them and the way they do and the consistency that they do it (with). I don’t care who you are. To do what they’ve done, it’s just been really impressive to watch.
But South Dakota State hasn’t seen anything quite like the Huskies, who demolished 15-seed Arkansas State 103-34 in their first-round matchup on Saturday. Superstar Paige Bueckers logged just 11 points in the victory while star guard Azzi Fudd, freshman phenom Sarah Strong and Big East Sixth Player of the Year Ashlynn Shade all scored 20-plus to power UConn’s best offensive output of the season. The Huskies also attacked the Red Wolves with smothering defensive pressure, scoring 34 points off of 20 forced turnovers and holding their opponent to just 17% shooting from the field.
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“When you watch Connecticut defend, it’s a connected group of people out there that make it really hard for you to be comfortable,” Johnston said. “They have the ability to pressure you full court, they can pressure you in the half court. They’ve got size where they can block shots and challenge things. They rebound really well, and then they just turn so many of those defensive possessions into quick offense.”
Though UConn and South Dakota State have never met before, Bueckers is a familiar face for Jackrabbits forward Kallie Theisen. The redshirt seniors were in the same class and went head to head annually for years on the Minnesota high school circuit, battling on opposite sides of the local rivalry between Bueckers’ Hopkins and Theisen’s Wayzata.
“We used to play each other I think almost every year to go to state, so it was always a big matchup in the same conference. It was always a great game when we played,” Bueckers said. “Just to be able to play at the next level where we dreamed of playing as a kid in March Madness, in the tournament, trying to compete for a national title, it’s everything you dream of. To continue to play against her, obviously we want to represent Minnesota well, so we hope to do that.”
How to watch UConn women’s basketball vs. South Dakota State in NCAA Tournament
Site: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs
Time/date: 8 p.m., Monday
Series record: First meeting
Team records: UConn 32-3, 18-0 Big East; South Dakota State 30-3, 16-0 Summit League
TV: ESPN
Streaming: ESPN+
Radio: UConn Sports Network on Fox Sports 97.9
Originally Published: March 23, 2025 at 6:12 PM EDT
