UConn injury woes continue with potential loss of Aaliyah Edwards
No. 5 UConn is somehow on a winning streak and a losing streak at the same time.
The Huskies notched their seventh consecutive victory on Thursday with a dominant 73-37 win over Xavier, but potentially lost Aaliyah Edwards, their top remaining healthy player, to a foot injury in the first half.
UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey told the SNY broadcast that Edwards tweaked her ankle when tripping over some chairs and landing in the crowd. She finished with four points, five rebounds and three assists in 14 minutes.
Dailey said the program will know more about Edwards' status on Friday.
Chris Dailey joins @mariacmarino to discuss the latest with Aaliyah Edwards' injury, taking care of the basketball, and looking forward to returning home from this road trip pic.twitter.com/dQODArCK2x
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) January 6, 2023
Edwards was recently named to the Wooden Award's Top 25 watchlist and entered Thursday averaging 17.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game while shooting 63.5 percent from the field.
Any time lost for Edwards would be yet another major setback for UConn, which is currently 13-2. The Huskies lost 2020-21 National Player of the Year Paige Bueckers to a torn ACL before the season and top recruit Isuneh Brady to a dislocated patella not long after.
Azzi Fudd, who stepped in with 20.6 points per game, remains out with a knee injury, but seems to be nearing a return. Other names like Caroline Ducharme, Dorka Juhasz and Aubrey Griffin have missed or are currently missing time and, because no one is safe, head coach Geno Auriemma has missed four straight games with an illness.
We're basically looking at a Ship of Theseus philosophy experiment playing out in Storrs right now, but the program is apparently doing its best to reverse the problem:
Chris Dailey on UConn's injuries: "We've tried the sage burning, we've tried a lot — Holy Water — we've tried a lot of things. And none of them have really seemed to work."
— Lila Bromberg (@lilabbromberg) January 6, 2023
We'll see how effective that strategy is during their next game, scheduled for Sunday against DePaul.