Uconn almost always heads into a season with a national championship as a goal, and ranked among a small group with a decent chance of achieving that goal. Then expectations change, players might turn out to be better or worse than thought and of course injuries.
We in essence have not received any help from two complete recruiting classes, the junior and sophomore class which included recruits ranked 1,5,15, 4 and 5. Only Ice is even available, and has under-performed her HS ranking by a significant margin. The odds of that happening are incredible, three straight years of injuries that were the kind of thing you might expect once in a 10 year stretch, not three times in a row.
Every one of those injuries and setbacks reduced the expectations for this team, and the combined impact probably cut our chances of the ultimate goal to a fraction of what they were previously.
That doesn't mean the goal changes, but the odds of reaching it certainly does, as does the framing over what is now considered a pretty good season given the hand we were dealt. I for one hate that a few cherished streaks came to an end, that I believe would not have if we had even average luck on injuries. Such as not losing two games in a row from 1993 until last year, or our in conference win streak being snapped.
So it was gratifying in this year of hardship to at least keep our streak of getting to the Sweet Sixteen intact, because unlike some prior years it was far from a given. If we win our next one, I think the season at that point will have been a success for me. If we make it to the Final Four a major over achievement, and if we could somehow win it all, one of the greatest sports stories of overcoming adversity in recent years.
We are probably not among the very top programs this year, but I think Geno is pretty proud of what this group has done so far, and believes they have performed pretty well given his revised expectations because of the circumstances.
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