Alexa Philippou
Multiple Authors
PHOENIX — TWO DAYS earlier than the Final Four, Sarah Strong was so nervous that she could not eat.
But the UConn Huskies‘ famous person wasn’t anxious about her group’s upcoming nationwide semifinal matchup in opposition to South Carolina or that the Huskies are two wins from an undefeated season and clinching back-to-back NCAA championships.
It had nothing to do with basketball. Strong dreads public talking.
Strong was about to be awarded the Naismith Trophy for nationwide participant of the yr. The ceremony honoring her and different award finalists was imminent. She must go on stage to obtain her trophy and provides just a few remarks in entrance of a crowd.
In different phrases: a concoction of issues that Strong — identified for her reserved public nature, succinct information convention solutions and disinterest within the highlight — would favor to bypass.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma mentioned final month. “Theoretically, those two things don’t go together: ‘I want to be the best player in the country,’ but then when people say, ‘Oh, there’s Sarah Strong, she’s the best player in the country'” — Auriemma bodily recoils as he imitates Strong — “she hides from it.”
If they ever existed, the times of Strong hiding within the wings are gone. Her expertise made that not possible. Last April, Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley deemed her able to being the perfect to come back out of UConn — and he or she has achieved nothing to dissuade that notion. Leading the No. 1 Huskies in factors, rebounds, steals and blocks, Strong has swept the nationwide participant of the yr awards thus far.
None of that issues to Strong — she is perhaps the one individual to explain successful the Naismith as a “cool side quest.” But her maturation on and off the courtroom into the star the Huskies want her to be may very well be the important thing to the revival of a dynasty, if all goes to plan this weekend for UConn in Phoenix.
“She’s a kid that sort of wants to fit in,” mentioned North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, who recruited Strong whereas she attended highschool in Durham in hopes of retaining her in-state. “I think now she realizes her version of fitting in is just being better than everybody else.
“I feel she simply is beginning to perceive the energy that’s Sarah Strong.”
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AZZI FUDD WASN’T sure what to think about Strong when they roomed together during the Huskies’ trip to the Bahamas around Thanksgiving 2024. Despite being roommates for a week, Fudd estimates most of their conversations lasted about 30 seconds.
Other teammates have similar stories about their first encounters with Strong. For Allie Ziebell, a fellow sophomore who took her official visit to Storrs with Strong, the combination of their quiet personalities made for a tough pairing. “Honestly, I really feel like each Sarah interplay I had earlier than was so awkward,” Ziebell mentioned, laughing.
Redshirt sophomore Jana El Alfy, in the meantime, crossed paths with Strong at a FIBA occasion in Hungary earlier than they turned Huskies and thought, “Either she hates me or she is simply shy.”
Once on campus, Strong got here out of her shell off the courtroom. The Huskies describe her as a goofball, somebody who can simply decide up new abilities and excels — virtually annoyingly — at the whole lot she tries. Ziebell describes her as the primary good friend to examine on somebody after they’re having a nasty day.
On the courtroom, Strong’s versatility, IQ and smoothness had been obvious instantly.
“[If] you’re building a player, how could you build something any different, any better?” Auriemma mentioned lately. But enjoying alongside star upperclassmen Fudd and Paige Bueckers, final yr’s No. 1 WNBA draft decide, meant Strong tended to yield to others.
“Usually, as a freshman, you come in, you want to gain everybody’s respect,” Bueckers instructed ESPN. “You don’t want to step on toes … I wanted her to think that it was her team, to where she felt confident enough to take over a game and didn’t have to be, like, defer to Paige, defer to Azzi.”
That shift occurred final March. Strong had 22 factors and 17 rebounds within the Elite Eight and 24 factors and 15 rebounds within the nationwide title recreation. She left Tampa, Florida, with a worthy case for Final Four most excellent participant — and with onlookers questioning how she may high her freshman season.
WITH BUECKERS OFF to the WNBA and this system readying for Fudd’s departure, a extra aggressive sophomore season for Strong was a mandate. She wanted to develop into extra assured and assertive, extra comfy not simply main by instance but additionally in utilizing her voice.
And she wanted to be OK with taking up video games when the Huskies wanted it — even when that felt counter to her nature as, in Banghart’s phrases, an individual “about as egoless as there is on the planet.”
“Her biggest flaw is her unselfishness,” Bueckers mentioned, “and I think that’s also her superpower too.”
“I think, too, [it’s about] helping reframe what being selfish is,” added Allison Feaster, Strong’s mom and a former Harvard star who for 2 seasons led the nation in scoring within the Nineteen Nineties. “If your team needs your score, if your team needs the ball to get in your hands, the team needs you to put pressure on the other team’s defense in whatever form that may be, then doing the opposite, to me, is being selfish.”
Game by recreation, Strong has come into her personal — and proved herself as probably the most dominant participant within the recreation. Her 31 profession video games of scoring not less than 20 factors are tied with Breanna Stewart for probably the most by a UConn participant by their first two seasons with this system over the previous 25 seasons. With 26 extra factors, she will be able to break Maya Moore’s UConn file for many factors by a participant’s first two NCAA tournaments; with 33 factors, she will be able to break Chamique Holdsclaw’s file (for any participant).
“She’s much more comfortable being herself, just authentically her,” UConn junior Ashlynn Shade mentioned. “I think that’s translated to her on the court, too, because she’s just so powerful, so strong, confident, that she’s just unstoppable.”
And when UConn has wanted her most in March, Strong has delivered.
In the Sweet 16, the Huskies trailed after the primary quarter for under the second time this season, their offense out of kinds in opposition to North Carolina’s stingy protection. Strong rattled off three straight baskets within the second quarter and scored 11 factors within the interval to swing the lead and momentum in UConn’s favor.
The Huskies had been forward 28-20 at halftime, and Strong spoke up within the locker room earlier than Auriemma got here in, telling her teammates that in the event that they performed their recreation, the Tar Heels could not cease it. After the victory, she described that second as maybe the primary time this season she felt comfy talking up in such a setting.
“I’m not going to be the one to talk and say the most things, but if I say something here and there, and it’s pretty impactful when I do,” Strong mentioned. “I know that team looks up to me and Azzi, so we try to do a good job of leading.”
Two days later, the Huskies had been in a dogfight in opposition to Notre Dame. They had bother getting Strong touches early on. After enjoying 38 minutes within the earlier recreation, her drained legs, she admitted after the sport, made her extra stagnant than typical.
But she acknowledged her group wanted her to point out up. And within the second half, she willed herself to fifteen of UConn’s 38 factors. She found her mother within the stands after securing the win, leaning over the courtside stats desk in exhaustion. “You dug in, baby,” Feaster instructed her, as Strong wiped her forehead and set free a “phew.”
“She knows that when it’s time to win games, that she has a huge responsibility,” Auriemma mentioned. “Some players shy away from it, and she likes it “
Feaster and Auriemma do not assume she feels stress. She simply sees it, they are saying, as doing no matter she must do to win.
“I honestly don’t think it registers in her mind, the things that she’s doing individually,” Feaster mentioned. “I don’t know how she even reflected on being a national champion in her first season. It’s not something that drives her, the individual aspect.”
Her looseness, her calmness, in flip, have develop into the group’s character this season, serving to the Huskies shoulder the burden of an undefeated file with a relative ease that has shocked even Auriemma.
“There is a level of confidence that Sarah has that I think she lifts them up to someplace where they wouldn’t be able to be by themselves or with maybe somebody different,” Auriemma mentioned. “So, they play with confidence knowing they have her, and that’s probably the best compliment that I can give her.”
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UConn downs Notre Dame to advance to the Final Four
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STRONG’S TEAMMATES TAKE their telephones out of their pockets and have them on standby. The official from the Naismith ceremony is about to announce the participant of the yr. And Strong is prepared.
The Huskies stand and erupt in cheers as Strong’s title is known as, and he or she takes the stage. They begin chanting, “speech! speech! speech!”
Strong approaches the rostrum and stands up straight, unwavering. She had spent the previous day making ready some remarks with UConn’s sports activities data director. Strong speaks for 45 seconds — “I don’t say a lot, but I genuinely do love you guys,” she says to her teammates as she closes — earlier than returning to her seat with a smile.
That’s not the final of the calls for for Strong. Naismith officers ask her to do a media circuit, talking with native reporters, CBS and even an interview with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt. There’s extra the subsequent day. She’s named the Associated Press participant of the yr in addition to the winner of the Wade Trophy for participant of the yr — which means extra ceremonies, extra standing ovations, extra media and extra acceptance speeches.
At the festivities for the Wade — lower than 24 hours earlier than the Final Four recreation in opposition to South Carolina — she’s requested if she desires to make any remarks.
“No,” she says, “I’ve said enough.”
She’s saving the remainder for the courtroom.
