The UConn women’s basketball team is headed to Nassau, Bahamas, during Thanksgiving week to compete in the Baha Mar Women’s Championship tournament, where it is guaranteed to face at least one team that won an NCAA Tournament game in 2024.
The Huskies will open the tournament on Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m. against Oregon State, who reached the Elite Eight last season before falling to eventual national champion South Carolina. However, the Beavers will look dramatically different in 2024-25 after losing eight players to the transfer portal including All-Pac-12 center Raegan Beers (Oklahoma) and guard Talia Von Oelhoffen (USC) plus Pac-12 Sixth Woman of the Year Timea Gardiner (UCLA).
UConn is 2-0 all time against Oregon State, last beating the Beavers 80-51 in the 2016 Final Four before going on to win a fourth consecutive national championship.
Opposite UConn’s first game in the bracket, Ole Miss will face Boston College. The winners and losers of each game will match up for a second game on Nov. 27. The Huskies have faced Ole Miss just once previously at a tournament in the Virgin Islands in 2018, where they won 90-50.
Boston College is a familiar foe after the Eagles competed in the Big East from 1982-2005 and beat UConn for the 2004 conference tournament championship, but the Huskies still hold a hefty lead in the all-time series 37-14. Ole Miss has made the last three consecutive NCAA Tournaments for the first time since 1994-96, while Boston College has not qualified for March Madness since 2006.
Four other teams — LSU, NC State, Washington and Southern — will also be in Nassau to compete in the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship across the same dates as the Women’s Championship.
The Huskies reached the Final Four in 2023-24 on a miracle run with just six players in the regular rotation, but the team expects to have a much deeper bench this year if it can stay healthy. Superstar guard Paige Bueckers is back for a fifth season of eligibility — and going through the offseason healthy for the first time since beginning her college career.
Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2021, will return after an ACL tear ended her 2023-24 season after just two games. Coach Geno Auriemma signed the No. 2 recruiting class in the country headlined by No. 1 2024 recruit Sarah Strong, and he added former Princeton point guard Kaitlyn Chen as his first transfer signee since 2022.
