Huskies Stars Credit Setbacks For Championship Realization

The University of Connecticut Huskies' women's basketball team traversed a bumpy road this time around. The start of it, however, has a new addition to its landmark.

Traffic should pick up by Exit 68 on Interstate 84 to see the new addition to the highway sign that informs motorists that the Storrs campus, and the athletic greatness hosted upon it, is nearby. Boasting the national titles of the Huskies' premier programs, the sign has required some maintenance over the last three years and the top column has finally been updated now that the women's basketball team has earned its record 12th and first since 2016.

Even the most stubborn hater of Huskies couldn't claim that this championship was unearned: UConn worked through several lingering injuries and endured some heartbreak losses that prevented both a perfect season and top seed honors at the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. But such roadblocks, the players claim, only pushed the Huskies closer to the title.

"Every team goes through their fair share of difficulties and trials. But I think what this team has been through together, especially this core group, we just been through a lot of traumatic experience, a lot of injuries, a lot of setbacks," Azzi Fudd said during a Wednesday appearance at an Enfield branch of the Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers chain. "It wasn't easy the whole year, we had our had our battles this year. But to see us come together at the end, when it really mattered, and play the way that we did was amazing."

"I felt like we just were coming together as a team. We did different stuff off the court to bring us together, and we're just always communicating with each other, just having fun, having different laughs," Arnold added at the same showing. "Those tough games, like Tennessee, or those games like that, they really brought us together. We realized we were better than that and we picked it up there and just the practices became more intensive."

To Arnold's point, the Huskies won each of their final 16 games after an 80-76 defeat to the Lady Volunteers in Knoxville on Feb. 8. While providing the typical brand of thrills that UConn hoops has become known for, dramatics were kept to a minimum: the closest game after the loss to UT was a 14-point triumph over Southern California in the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight round.

Adversity manifested in different ways for the Huskies: while almost all regulars played at least 38 games this year, some like Fudd were coming off lasting injuries that could've thrown a wrench into UConn's championship aspirations. Arnold was a starter as a freshman during last season's run to the Final Four but she became a de facto sixth woman when Kaitlyn Chen arrived from Princeton.

Such stories won't appear on the next banner—or I-84 update—but it's something the Huskies nonetheless remain proud of as they seek a 13th championship in due time.

"I am even more excited and motivated now to come back and win another one," said Fudd, who surprisingly spurned the upcoming WNBA Draft to return to Storrs for one more year. "I can't wait to play more games with every single person. I can't wait to be back around Gampel [Pavilion] with the best fans in the world. Winning just made me more excited and more hungry to have this [championship] feeling again."

Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags