Monday Match-Up Set To Rekindle Old History
October 09, 2025 | Women's Basketball, #ForBoston Files
An exhibition against UConn pits BC against Geno Auriemma for the first time in 20 years.
The Boston College women's basketball program hit a zenith during its final years in the Big East. Head coach Cathy Inglese's battle for recognition for a program once mired in the dusty practice facility at old Power Gym had finally achieved a breakthrough when it appeared in its first NCAA Tournament in 1999, and six different 20-win seasons included a 75-57 win over Rutgers for the team's first-ever conference championship. Routine placement in the league's upper tier enabled the Eagles to advance to the NCAA Tournament as a team situated just under the mighty Connecticut powerhouse, and the vast majority of those appearances ended with at least one victory in the 64-team bracket.
The Eagles were no longer an also-ran in a league dominated by traditional women's basketball powerhouses, but the impending realignment sent BC into final matchups against the teams that it now regularly defeated. On February 26, 2005, that included one last hurrah and a final Big East win over the hated Huskies before a sold-out Conte Forum crowd that showcased the final night of a matchup scheduled to take the court for Monday's exhibition game at Mohegan Sun Arena.
"They wanted a win," wrote Susan Bickelhaupt in the next day's Boston Globe, "and they needed one, teetering in a tie for fifth place in the Big East standings. And that's what No. 24 BC got, defeating No. 11 Connecticut, 51-48, before a sellout crowd of 8,606. It was the Eagles' first win against a ranked opponent this season and puts them in a better position for the Big East tournament…and for the NCAA Tournament that follows."
BC historically sat on a pedestal with little or no differences from the majority of programs routinely scheduled against the mighty Connecticut program. History was unkind to anyone who dared to challenge the tradition of a team with four national championships over a five-year span at the turn of the century, but the Huskies were more than just a team that dominated their opponents for 11 consecutive Big East regular season championships and six conference tournament crowns.Â
UConn was a megalith, a team with a 370-28 record over the 10 years ahead of BC's announced defection. Head coach Geno Auriemma had taken the 2000 Team USA Olympic team to a gold medal in Sydney before winning bronze in 2001 at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in the Czech Republic, and he'd erased the memory of a program that had one winning season prior to his arrival.
BC 's memories of routine wins over the Huskies were frozen to the Regan administrations of the 1980s. A 1990 win at home represented the last victory over UConn until a 78-66 win at Conte Forum in 1999, but even that was a cut above the winless record in Storrs after an overtime win during the second half of the 1987-1988 season. Not even the tournament years at the start of the 2000s could alter those outcomes after BC's one-point win over fourth-seeded Vanderbilt in the 2003 NCAA Tournament Second Round ended with a 70-49 Sweet Sixteen blowout at the hands of the dreaded Huskies.
"The day had started out full of hope for the Boston College women's basketball team," wrote Bickelhaupt. "The Eagles got to skip their scheduled 7 a.m. shootaround, and by noon were ready to face Connecticut in the NCAA East Regional semifinals. Sure, the Huskies were the No. 1 seed, but the Eagles had played their Big East rival dozens of times, beat them five years ago, and gave the nation's top-ranked team all it could handle in an 83-75 loss [on] February 8.
"But BC ran into what every other team has run into this season," she continued, "a UConn team that outshot, outrebounded and outhustled its opponent as the Huskies routed the Eagles, 70-49, before 9,552 at Dayton Arena."
BC carried no shame in losing to a lineup led by Diana Taurasi, Jessica Moore and Barbara Turner because the final acts of the Big East era eventually evened some of the scores with the nation's best program. A 73-70 win in the Big East Tournament in 2004 carried the Eagles to their first conference championship before the 2004-2005 season ended with the home win over UConn, but the two teams ended their cross-region rivalry after the Huskies won the next year's Preseason WNIT non-conference game by 14 points.
"A fan held up a sign reading 'BC is Ancient History,'" wrote Bickelhaupt in the postgame recap, "probably referring to the game as well as BC's move to the Atlantic Coast Conference."
That last meetup and the "recent" history associated with their final head-to-head games therefore provide contextual footnotes for Monday's exhibition game. On its own, the 2 p.m. tip-off from the Mohegan Sun Arena cannot and should not rekindle an old flame, nor should it stoke a new chapter to an old rivalry. It won't count towards a record and won't influence either team's season-long aspirations.Â
UConn is preparing to defend a national championship after winning the NCAA title for the first time in eight years. Its first game isn't until a November 4 game against Louisville in the Armed Forces Classic at Ramstein Air Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and it doesn't play at home until a November 9 game against Florida State. A second exhibition against Southern Connecticut, a Division II school in the Northeast-10 Conference, is approximately two weeks after the Huskies play BC at Mohegan Sun.
BC, meanwhile, is searching for the next phase of its program development. A win over Holy Cross or New Hampshire means more to the 2025-2026 season than the outcome of Monday's midday exhibition, and getting out to a fast start with six of the first eight games at home is a paramount challenge for a team attempting to alchemize a roster with a dozen new faces.
Yet putting BC and UConn on a basketball court together still creates magic for fanbases easily capable of recalling the acrimonious fractures within the old Big East. The Eagles and Huskies were particularly bitter at one another after BC left for the ACC, and the two decades since the realignment's first round doesn't dim the ink written in those history books. For many, the opportunity to watch BC and UConn on a women's basketball court is akin to the men's game later that night - a memory that matters and a chance to settle an old score from a bygone era that, for one afternoon, is back in full view.
Boston College and Connecticut tip-off on Friday at 2 p.m. in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women's Exhibition Game from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Tickets can be purchased by visiting MoheganSun.com or by searching for the event on Ticketmaster.Â
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The Eagles were no longer an also-ran in a league dominated by traditional women's basketball powerhouses, but the impending realignment sent BC into final matchups against the teams that it now regularly defeated. On February 26, 2005, that included one last hurrah and a final Big East win over the hated Huskies before a sold-out Conte Forum crowd that showcased the final night of a matchup scheduled to take the court for Monday's exhibition game at Mohegan Sun Arena.
"They wanted a win," wrote Susan Bickelhaupt in the next day's Boston Globe, "and they needed one, teetering in a tie for fifth place in the Big East standings. And that's what No. 24 BC got, defeating No. 11 Connecticut, 51-48, before a sellout crowd of 8,606. It was the Eagles' first win against a ranked opponent this season and puts them in a better position for the Big East tournament…and for the NCAA Tournament that follows."
BC historically sat on a pedestal with little or no differences from the majority of programs routinely scheduled against the mighty Connecticut program. History was unkind to anyone who dared to challenge the tradition of a team with four national championships over a five-year span at the turn of the century, but the Huskies were more than just a team that dominated their opponents for 11 consecutive Big East regular season championships and six conference tournament crowns.Â
UConn was a megalith, a team with a 370-28 record over the 10 years ahead of BC's announced defection. Head coach Geno Auriemma had taken the 2000 Team USA Olympic team to a gold medal in Sydney before winning bronze in 2001 at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in the Czech Republic, and he'd erased the memory of a program that had one winning season prior to his arrival.
BC 's memories of routine wins over the Huskies were frozen to the Regan administrations of the 1980s. A 1990 win at home represented the last victory over UConn until a 78-66 win at Conte Forum in 1999, but even that was a cut above the winless record in Storrs after an overtime win during the second half of the 1987-1988 season. Not even the tournament years at the start of the 2000s could alter those outcomes after BC's one-point win over fourth-seeded Vanderbilt in the 2003 NCAA Tournament Second Round ended with a 70-49 Sweet Sixteen blowout at the hands of the dreaded Huskies.
"The day had started out full of hope for the Boston College women's basketball team," wrote Bickelhaupt. "The Eagles got to skip their scheduled 7 a.m. shootaround, and by noon were ready to face Connecticut in the NCAA East Regional semifinals. Sure, the Huskies were the No. 1 seed, but the Eagles had played their Big East rival dozens of times, beat them five years ago, and gave the nation's top-ranked team all it could handle in an 83-75 loss [on] February 8.
"But BC ran into what every other team has run into this season," she continued, "a UConn team that outshot, outrebounded and outhustled its opponent as the Huskies routed the Eagles, 70-49, before 9,552 at Dayton Arena."
BC carried no shame in losing to a lineup led by Diana Taurasi, Jessica Moore and Barbara Turner because the final acts of the Big East era eventually evened some of the scores with the nation's best program. A 73-70 win in the Big East Tournament in 2004 carried the Eagles to their first conference championship before the 2004-2005 season ended with the home win over UConn, but the two teams ended their cross-region rivalry after the Huskies won the next year's Preseason WNIT non-conference game by 14 points.
"A fan held up a sign reading 'BC is Ancient History,'" wrote Bickelhaupt in the postgame recap, "probably referring to the game as well as BC's move to the Atlantic Coast Conference."
That last meetup and the "recent" history associated with their final head-to-head games therefore provide contextual footnotes for Monday's exhibition game. On its own, the 2 p.m. tip-off from the Mohegan Sun Arena cannot and should not rekindle an old flame, nor should it stoke a new chapter to an old rivalry. It won't count towards a record and won't influence either team's season-long aspirations.Â
UConn is preparing to defend a national championship after winning the NCAA title for the first time in eight years. Its first game isn't until a November 4 game against Louisville in the Armed Forces Classic at Ramstein Air Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and it doesn't play at home until a November 9 game against Florida State. A second exhibition against Southern Connecticut, a Division II school in the Northeast-10 Conference, is approximately two weeks after the Huskies play BC at Mohegan Sun.
BC, meanwhile, is searching for the next phase of its program development. A win over Holy Cross or New Hampshire means more to the 2025-2026 season than the outcome of Monday's midday exhibition, and getting out to a fast start with six of the first eight games at home is a paramount challenge for a team attempting to alchemize a roster with a dozen new faces.
Yet putting BC and UConn on a basketball court together still creates magic for fanbases easily capable of recalling the acrimonious fractures within the old Big East. The Eagles and Huskies were particularly bitter at one another after BC left for the ACC, and the two decades since the realignment's first round doesn't dim the ink written in those history books. For many, the opportunity to watch BC and UConn on a women's basketball court is akin to the men's game later that night - a memory that matters and a chance to settle an old score from a bygone era that, for one afternoon, is back in full view.
Boston College and Connecticut tip-off on Friday at 2 p.m. in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women's Exhibition Game from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Tickets can be purchased by visiting MoheganSun.com or by searching for the event on Ticketmaster.Â
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