San Antonio — The players were closer off the court than any team UConn coach Geno Auriemma has had recently, perhaps because of the months, the holidays they spent together as teammates, as a makeshift family, unable to leave campus due to COVID-19.

On the court there was a disconnect that Auriemma admitted this week made him feel like he was drowning.

"On the court, in the beginning, it was lots of fun watching the newness of it," Auriemma said. "After a while, that wore off. There were times in November and there were moments in December and January where I didn't want any part of this team.

"Because they were so good off the court, they were so tight, there were so together off the court and they were everything but that on the court. And then you realize everybody's trying but they're going in 20 different directions. So every day for me was just one frustration after another after another after another."

The fact that Auriemma was telling the story from the Women's Final Four in San Antonio, UConn's unparalleled 13th straight trip to the game's ultimate destination, meant something had gone right since then.

UConn (28-2) finished the season with a disappointing 69-59 semifinal loss Friday night to underdog Arizona, which was playing in its first Final Four. But for UConn to be in that position with seven freshmen and 10 members of the team who had never been to a Final Four before either, something had to have gone right between misery and March Madness.

Auriemma believes the breakthrough came with a Jan. 28 loss at then-No. 19 Arkansas. Arkansas scorched the UConn defense for a 90-87 victory. The coach said had his team not responded by the time it played three days later against DePaul in Chicago, things might have gone south the rest of the season.

"After the Arkansas game, just everyone, you could just feel the embarrassment throughout everyone in the locker room," UConn redshirt junior Evina Westbrook said. "The coaches hadn't even entered yet. We were all just sitting there. Not even defeated, just embarrassed, like 'We just allowed that to happen.'

"I think we took it upon ourselves as a team, 'Hey, this can't happen anymore.' We pulled it together. ... We could have went two ways after that game, either stuck in a deep hole and never got ourselves out of it or changed our ways like we did."

UConn started communicating on defense, Westbrook said, started taking pride in the fact that people couldn't score against the Huskies.

They gave up an average of 51.7 points over the final 11 games of the regular season. Then they squeezed Big East Conference opponents St. John's, Villanova and Marquette in winning the league tournament, giving up just 39.7 points per game over the three-game stretch.

"It was great to see everyone's passion and hard work and determination to fix that," Westbrook said.

And that's what made it fun again. The Huskies commemorated their Big East tournament victory by making "snow angels" in the celebratory confetti on the floor at Mohegan Sun Arena.

"We won a lot of these, I don't know how many," Auriemma said that day. "I don't remember quite a spontaneous and joyful celebration like these kids had. It's great to be young. These kids have come in and really they've reinvigorated everyone associated with our program. They're just really unique kids and I'm really happy for them."

He said that maybe having overcome the frustrations of the season pre-Arkansas is where the joy comes from now.

"I'm not afraid to admit it, I was drowning," Auriemma said. "And ever since the Arkansas game, I feel like I've been reborn. It is fun. It is fun."

Where does UConn go from here? Well, everyone returns, including freshman All-America guard Paige Bueckers, who won three national player of the year awards: the Naismith Trophy, Associated Press award and on Sunday the Ann Meyers Drysdale award from the U.S. Basketball Writers' Association. Bueckers, who led UConn with 20.0 points and 5.8 assists per game, became the first freshman in history to earn all three of those honors.

Later Sunday, she also became the first freshman to win the Nancy Lieberman Award as the nation's best point guard.

Bueckers was Big East Player of the Year, Big East Freshman of the Year and the league tournament's Most Outstanding Player, the first person in program history to gather all three of those in the same year. She was joined on the Big East first team by junior Christyn Williams, while junior Olivia Nelson-Ododa was the Co-Defensive Player of the Year and freshman Aaliyah Edwards was named the league's Sixth-Woman of the Year.

Westbrook, the team's co-captain and off-the-court vocal leader, was the Huskies' only possible departure, eligible to leave early and enter the upcoming WNBA Draft. Her Instagram post Sunday night, however, accompanied by the words "unfinished business," indicated that she was in fact staying for her final season.

Meanwhile, the Huskies add the No. 2 recruiting class in the nation with ESPN's top-ranked prospect in Azzi Fudd, No. 5 Caroline Ducharme and No. 15 Amari DeBerry. The fourth member of that class, No. 30 Saylor Poffenbarger, enrolled early at UConn and played for the Huskies during the second semester.

UConn will have three No. 1 recruits on the team next year in Williams, Bueckers and Fudd.

Auriemma said following Friday's loss that he plans on coaching in next year's Final Four.

"I believe that what we learned this year through all the ups and downs is going to really benefit us for the next couple of years, for sure," he said. "I remember saying that in 2008. We played and we lost to Stanford in the (national) semifinal. It was Maya Moore's freshman year. I said, 'We'll be back.'

"We went back and we were undefeated the next two seasons. I don't think that's going to happen, but we'll be back here sooner rather than later."

He would like to see UConn graduate to having more balanced scoring and more maturity.

"You got to be able to play a bunch of high-level games in a row, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, in order to win the whole thing," he said. "And you got to get a little bit of luck."

"I mean, I'm going to take away from this season how close we are as a team," said UConn's Williams, named to the River Walk Region all-tournament team along with Bueckers. "Those are my sisters and I'd do anything for them. That's something I'll definitely remember."

v.fulkerson@theday.com