Caroline Ducharme, feeling good at last, is rediscovering her form for UConn women

STORRS – The last couple of years have been a strange and often frustrating journey for Caroline Ducharme.

There have been times when she has had opportunity and used it to carry the UConn women’s basketball team almost by herself. And at other times, she has woken up in the morning and knew right away she couldn’t do much that day. Good days and bad, without being able to predict how she will feel tomorrow.

“There are days that make me appreciate, not only basketball, but my health in general,” Ducharme said. “Just doing everyday things I have to think about more, take extra precaution around it.”

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Ducharme, beginning her junior season, has dealt with the lingering effects of multiple concussions during her basketball career. She often experiences neck pain, often needs ice treatment on the sidelines. She has played in 51 of 73 possible games at UConn, missing 13 games, 40 days in concussion protocol at one point. In a number of the games she has played, it has only been a few minutes before the coaches just didn’t like the way she was moving around and sat her down.

“It’s a mystery to me, because I’ve never seen anything like it,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “It’s all this tightness, all this stress in her shoulders and neck, it just puts so much pressure on her that sometimes it becomes really, really difficult to do what she wants to do. And it’s not like she’s going to stop driving in there and going to the basket. I just want her to be healthy, I want her to be 100 percent, for basketball and going forward. I certainly don’t want her to be constantly living in that way.”

After a long offseason of work with Andrea Hudy, the program’s director of sports performance, Ducharme has so far been healthy and looked like her old self. The Huskies play Southern Connecticut an exhibition game Saturday at Gampel Pavilion, a last tune-up for the season opener four days later against Dayton.

“This is the closest Carol’ has been since freshman year,” Auriemma said. “She’s gone through the entire practice, every practice. I’m really, really, really encouraged by that because, when she gets it going, man.”

Yes, Ducharme, the 6 foot 2 forward from Milton, Mass., has answered the call for every practice, but she bends down and knocks on the new hardwood floor at Gampel when she is reminded of that, to ward off any jinx.

“I’ve felt really good the last couple of weeks, being able to get through that,” she said. “That was my biggest thing this summer, just trying to get healthy, stay healthy. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into it, not just coming out here and feeling good.”

Ducharme has to limit her time watching TV or other screens, avoid bright lights, loud noise. “Little things you don’t even think of,” she said. “But I think I’ve been able to adjust to it.”

Her freshman year, with UConn hit with a series of injuries, Ducharme broke out midseason with double-figure scoring in 14 games, including 19 points and a game-winning basket against DePaul, a high of 28 against St. John’s. She made the All-Big East freshman team, and second team.

But the series of injuries slowed her toward the end of that season, and she had hip surgery over the summer of 2022. Injuries disrupted much of 2022-23. Over her career Ducharme, a McDonald’s All-American and top-five recruit, has averaged 8.9 points, 3.6 rebounds, number that bely how productive she has been at her best.

“There were times her freshman year when we did have everybody and she still played a lot,” Auriemma said. “It looked great because we had one more shooter, one more real aggressive player. I think she’s going to fit in great with everybody healthy. We can put her in a lot of places. When we want to go small, it gives us another shooter, another ballhandler. It just adds another player that stretches the floor.”

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One reason, perhaps, Ducharme has had so many such injuries is because of the aggressive way she plays. “Fearless,” Auriemma calls it. She focused on her shooting on certain days over the summer, and she hit 9 of 11 on threes in the Huskies’ scrimmage against Syracuse.

“You are starting to see a healthy Caroline,” Azzi Fudd said. “She has been working really hard in the weight room, training room, on the floor. I’m really proud of her. She has been through so much and to see her give her all every day, just give everything she has, because she easily has an excuse not to, to take a day off, take it easy. She constantly is proving she can be relied on and is going to be a key part of our season.”

A healthy Ducharme, her game expanded by her experiences, will be playing with the full complement of talent, at least as the season begins. (Again, knock on the hardwood.).

Terrance Williams/AP

Caroline Ducharme is ready to get back on the court for UConn women.. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)

“We have so many different weapons,” Ducharme said, “but we haven’t been able to utilize everything because one person is out, then someone comes back and you’re kind of just flip-flopping with what you have access to. Coach was saying, we have so many options. Where we had to settle for a good shot, now we can get a great shot every time down.”

Taking it one day at a time is more than just a sports cliché for Ducharme. But now that she is having more good days than bad, she has found a path for staying healthy and having success.

“It’s just being appreciative of the days I do feel good,” she said, “and keeping that positive outlook going forward.”

How to watch: Saturday’s game can be heard on The River, FM 105.9 as well as via The Varsity Network app and the iHeart media app via The River.