UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu didn’t join the team for the start of its two-game road trip Monday night in Connecticut as she recovers from a back issue.

In a statement provided to The Post on Monday, coach Chris DeMarco said Ionescu is “progressing well” and that she stayed home to play 5-on-5 with the practice players, which he said is “standard practice for us before we can fully clear a player for game action.”

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“Whenever you progress to the 5-on-5, you get away from the player development, 2-on-2, 3-on-3, and you’re actually playing live games, like, it does feel like [the light at the end of the tunnel],” DeMarco said pregame. “We don’t have a target date, but she’s progressing.”

Ionescu has played in only one game this season as she’s dealt with various injuries.

She missed the first two weeks of the season after hurting her left foot near the end of the preseason.

She made her season debut May 24, and has been sidelined since due to a sore back.

Ionescu seemed to be turning a corner in her recovery last week when she returned to practice as a full participant Friday. But the soreness persisted the following day, and the Liberty officially ruled her inactive the morning of Saturday’s game against the Fever.

The Liberty haven’t shared specific details of Ionescu’s back issue. DeMarco reiterated Saturday that “it’s sore.”

Dr. James Lin, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Mount Sinai, told The Post that it’s “very, very common” for back soreness to take 2-4 weeks to get better.

“That’s just an average patient,” he said. “A professional athlete where the demands are very high, it may take a little bit longer before they can get back to that kind of elite level of performance.”

Lin is not privy to Ionescu’s situation beyond what’s publicly known, but he said back soreness typically results from muscle strain or fatigue and, in some rare cases, a herniated disc. The latter injury, though, is typically accompanied by other symptoms, such as sciatica.

Lin said the return-to-play timeline for an athlete can be unpredictable because of potential setbacks in the process.

“[The back is] so central to almost every activity that you do,” Lin said. “So if you think of a similar injury, such as an ankle sprain, [which] is very common, that alone can take a couple weeks to get better but you can really off-load your ankle. It’s really hard to off-load weight from your back because everyone has to sit, stand and walk. And while most episodes of back pain are not a sign of serious damage, it can take a while to get better.”

The Liberty have a history of taking a cautious approach to reintegrating players after an injury. For example, Satou Sabally is coming off the bench for the foreseeable future as she works her way back from a concussion that sidelined her for most of the offseason.

That careful approach should be applied to any player returning from a back injury, Lin said.

“The concern is that if you try to get back too soon to really high-level activity… you can certainly re-aggravate it,” he said. “So I think that’s part of consideration as well to how you kind of make sure it goes away and not re-aggravate and restart the clock.”

The Liberty (7-4) are in the midst of Commissioner’s Cup action. After Monday’s visit to face the last-place Sun, they play in Atlanta on Thursday. Ionescu’s status for that marquee game remains unclear.