UConn focused on protecting Caroline Ducharme's future

Geno Auriemma traces the origin of Caroline Ducharme’s latest absence to Aug. 13.

It’s the first quarter of the first game in UConn’s European Tour. The Huskies are moving the ball up the floor in transition and as Ice Brady tries to make a pass from half court to a teammate, she inadvertently hits Ducharme in the head with the ball, according to the coach. Ducharme leaves the game, doesn’t return and sits out the following contest as well.

“You can’t make that up,” Auriemma said on his radio show last week.

Just like that, all the positive momentum Ducharme built up since the end of the previous season vanished.

“When we were in Europe, this is the best she’s looked since freshman year — partly because she hadn’t done anything (aside from work during the summer session) since we lost in March,” Auriemma explained.

Ducharme is currently sidelined indefinitely due to the effects from various head injuries that she’s suffered over the last three seasons. Neck spasms — the result of turbulence on the team’s flight to the Caribbean — were given as the reason she didn’t play in the Cayman Islands Classic, but those were just a small part of the problem. Since then, UConn has turned its focus toward Ducharme’s future beyond the basketball court.

“It’s just something that keeps reoccurring,” Auriemma said. “In the long term, it’s ‘What are we talking about here? Are we talking about basketball right now? Or are we talking about 10 years from now.’ I think you have to be real careful with this stuff. It's not worth winning a couple more games if you're going to put a kid's future in jeopardy. I'd rather not do that."

Since the team returned stateside, Ducharme hasn’t been at any games — home or away. She’s still on campus — she appeared in a video on social media recently — but there hasn’t been much of an update outside that.

“She’s doing okay,” is all Auriemma said about her current status during his radio show.

Regardless, the coach has hinted that Ducharme will miss an extended period of time and could sit out the remainder of the season to get her right after a lengthy history of head injuries.

As a freshman, she missed five games after a series of blows to the head.

“The last two games that we played, she took a couple pretty solid hits,” Auriemma said at the time. “She just wasn’t feeling really good yesterday and this morning when she woke up. Precautionary — it’s best to keep her out.”

Ducharme sat out the 2022-23 season opener with neck stiffness, then suffered a concussion in practice this past January and missed 13 games. During UConn’s European trip this summer, she not only took the ball off the head in the first game and sat out the ensuing contest, she got hit in the head during the third game and missed the final exhibition.

Ahead of the current season, Ducharme revealed the toll that all the head problems have taken on her everyday life.

“Doing everyday things, now I have to think about it more, take extra precautions around it,” she said. “The usual things like being in bright lights, loud noises, schoolwork, looking at screens, watching TV. Little things that you don't really even think about.”

Ducharme has been out for the last seven games. The Huskies are already without three players for the remainder of the season: Jana El Alfy (achilles), Azzi Fudd (torn ACL) and Ayanna Patterson (knee surgery).