The Road Home Is Closing: For Connecticut's Huskies, a Chapter Ends
For 24 years, Connecticut fans watched their Huskies grow up, leave Storrs and come back to play professionally. After this season, that part of the journey is over.
Breanna Stewart drew the loudest ovation of New York's starting lineup introductions Saturday afternoon at Mohegan Sun Arena. She then missed her first seven shots and finished with 11 points on 3-of-12 shooting in the Liberty's 82-75 win over the Sun.
Nobody cared. The cheers were never really about the box score.
They were about knowing this was the last time Breanna Stewart would play a professional basketball game in Connecticut. Four national championships at Storrs had made her one of the state's own. Then came the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 WNBA Draft and nearly a decade of coming back to Uncasville in the wrong uniform. Nobody here ever seemed to mind. Even in Seattle Storm or NY Liberty green, she was still ours in a way.
"It's tough to see a team go, but it's exciting to see what's coming," Stewart said afterward, according to CT Insider's Maggie Vanoni. She added that she was happy the last one was a win.
For Stewart, the last one was a win. For Connecticut, it was something harder to put into words.
The second chapter
For 24 years, Connecticut fans had a pretty remarkable deal. You watched a kid at Gampel. You watched her grow up, watched her graduate, and if you were lucky, you got to watch her come home.
The Sun became the second chapter of the UConn experience. Favorite Huskies didn't disappear when they left Storrs. They came back to Mohegan in different uniforms, playing for different teams, and somehow it never quite felt like they'd left at all.
Stewart is the ceiling of that arrangement, but she was never the whole of it. Olivia Nelson-Ododa spent Saturday afternoon reminding everyone of that, reaching 1,000 points in her WNBA career with two free throws in the second quarter before Saniya Rivers mimed placing a crown on her head during the timeout that followed. Nelson-Ododa went on to finish with a career-high 21 points and 10 rebounds, while Aaliyah Edwards, another former Husky, watched from the bench with an ankle injury. For a few minutes, it felt like a snapshot of exactly what Connecticut has always had; its Huskies leaving Storrs, growing into professional players, and somehow finding their way back.
What actually ends
It isn't UConn's pipeline to the WNBA. That isn't going anywhere. Connecticut will keep producing professional players, and they'll keep hearing their names called on draft night.
What ends is the return trip.
Most of these players weren't from here. Stewart came from Syracuse, Nelson-Ododa from Georgia, Edwards from Ontario. Connecticut adopted them anyway, and then got to keep watching them, which is a thing almost no other college fan base in the country has ever been handed. After this season the Sun are in Houston, and the next Breanna Stewart will leave Storrs for a league with no reason to bring her back.
There are four home games left. Four more chances to cheer for a former Husky who came back to play in Connecticut. Stewart got her last one, and it was a win. The Huskies who come after her will still leave Storrs, they just won't get to come back home to play.
Cover photo by Jessica Rosario
