STORRS, Conn. — The UConn women’s basketball team has lost another player due to injury.
Sophomore guard Carolina Ducharme will not travel with the team for the Huskies’ two-game road trip to Butler and Xavier after sustaining an injury at practice on Monday, the school announced.
The university said Ducharme is currently under concussion protocol and there is no timetable for her return to play. They did not elaborate on how she sustained her injury.
Ducharme is the latest Huskies player to get hit by injury or illness.
This season for the Huskies has been eerily similar to a year ago when the team weathered a run of injuries and illness to reach the NCAA Tournament championship game last season. They had hoped the core of that team was supposed to be back this year, but it has not.
The Huskies (10-2, 3-0 Big East) are winning at a high rate, as usual, but the lineups and rotations keep changing because of injuries.
“Unfortunately, we’re going through it again,” head coach Geno Auriemma said after the Huskies beat Creighton with only seven plays in uniform. “You never really get comfortable with it or used to it. It’s always difficult on the players and it’s difficult on the coaching staff.”
Former national player of the year Paige Bueckers and star recruit Ice Brady have been out the entire year. Bueckers, who missed 19 games with a knee injury last season, is now recovering from a torn ACL. Brady dislocated her kneecap.
Dorka Juhasz missed seven games with a broken left thumb, season-scoring leader Azzi Fudd has missed five games with a knee injury and national assists leader Nika Muhl was out for a game because of a concussion.
Aubrey Griffin missed the Creighton game because of COVID-19 and reserve Amari DeBerry didn't play because she couldn't get a flight from Buffalo, New York, where she spent Christmas.
Even Auriemma has missed two games because of a flu-like illness.
“When we got the news that Paige wasn't playing, it was like a gut punch right from the beginning,” he said. “You can see something happens during the season and you lose somebody. But when you lose a kid like that, before you even get back to school... Then it just kept piling up. You wonder at what point are these kids going to break?”
Aaliyah Edwards, Lou Lopez Senechal and Ayannia Patterson are the only players who have appeared in every game.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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