{"id":297067,"date":"2025-10-12T10:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297067\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T10:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:48:11","slug":"uconn-women-newcomers-adjusting-more-wnba-semantics-jeter-arod-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297067\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn women newcomers adjusting; more WNBA semantics, Jeter, ARod and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wherever in the world they grew up, where they\u2019d been playing, UConn women\u2019s basketball<\/a> represents something different. The Huskies are on TV in March, every March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s a curiosity and a desire to be part of all that. Now five newcomers, including two experienced transfers, have joined the Huskies for the quest for championship No. 13.<\/a> No getting around it, it\u2019s different here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is only one way to think about this place, it\u2019s just greatness,\u201d said Serah Williams<\/a>, the senior power forward who transferred from Wisconsin. \u201cYou hear \u2018UConn\u2019 and you just think, \u2018success.\u2019 \u2026 The expectation to win, how to do everything, everything right, everything perfect. You have to exert more because now you\u2019re playing to new standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Pathetic\u2019 no more, Hartford Athletic soccer team finally brings home the trophy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Over the years, it has been shown that it is not for everyone. Long before \u201cportal\u201d became a household word, players who couldn\u2019t handle all that Williams described transferred out. Those who stay make the adjustment to get what they came for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectation level that they have, \u2018This is Connecticut, it\u2019s going to be different,’\u201d UConn coach Geno Auriemma said.<\/a> \u201cThe expectations their teammates have for them. \u2018Hey, coach thinks you\u2019re good enough to play here, you better prove it every day.\u2019 Then the expectations that come with, \u2018We\u2019ve been watching you play on TV all the time, you\u2019re the team everyone wants to beat and now I\u2019m a part of that.\u2019 That was an adjustment for a lot of kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery possession matters, every drill matters a lot, not that it doesn\u2019t at other places, but the competition on the floor is different. If you don\u2019t get it right, the next three are going to get it right. Everything is amplified.\u201d<\/p>\n

It takes time, Auriemma noted, to adjust to the place where every game is almost a one-game season, every loss seems like the end of the world in a place where there hasn\u2019t been more than six in a season since 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see it in freshmen,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cYou\u2019ll lose a couple of games and you\u2019ll see the look on their face, like \u2018Why does it look like a relative died in here? We\u2019re 5-1, what\u2019s the big deal?\u2019 And sometimes I want to go, \u2018Yeah, you\u2019re right.\u2019 But it does feel like you\u2019re never supposed to lose here.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 11 national championships between 1995 and 2016, UConn did not win No. 12 until last April, though they reached the Final Four every year but one. Reaching the Final Four has become a\u00a0baseline achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe standard here is so different than anywhere else,\u201d said senior Caroline Ducharme.<\/a> \u201cPeople come here and they\u2019re like, \u2018I\u2019ve never worked his hard, I\u2019ve never had this much expected of me.\u2019 So the expectation that every little thing matters, I don\u2019t think anywhere else pays attention to that level of detail the way we do.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Williams, originally from Brooklyn, put her name in the portal last March and was surprised to hear from UConn. \u201cIt was more of, \u2018You just won a national championship without me,’\u201d she said.<\/a> \u201cThe need, for me, I asked them, \u2018Why do you want me here.\u2019 I expressed my areas of growth I wanted and I decided this was the perfect place for me to spend my last year of college.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KayleighKayleigh Heckel is coming cross country, departing Southern Cal and joining the UConn women’s basketball team for the 2025-26 season. (AP Photo\/Charlie Neibergall)<\/p>\n

Top of mind for Williams is the chance to play in March. She never played in the NCAA Tournament in three years at Wisconsin. Kayleigh Heckel, a sophomore, played a year at Southern California, which made it deep into the tournament. Freshmen Kelis Fisher, a peppery Baltimorean, Blanca Quinonez, who was born in Ecuador but has been playing in Italy, and Gandy Malou-Mamel, from Ireland, are the others who have taken this plunge<\/a> into a different basketball world.<\/p>\n

Quinonez wasn\u2019t sure she wanted to play in the U.S, until she started following March Madness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to arrive at the goals that you have, you need to get steps,\u201d she said.<\/a> \u201cAnd this is one of the biggest steps to get what I want to get. UConn, here is everything you need to have to get better and improve yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connecticut will get its first look at the Huskies on Monday at 2 p.m.<\/a> against Boston College at Mohegan Sun, an exhibition game, but there will be 8,000 pairs of eyes in the building, countless more outside. Here the newcomers enter the fishbowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, they all get acclimated to it, eventually they do,\u201d Auriemma said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just a dynamic that can only be experienced. You can\u2019t prepare for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

More for your Sunday Read:<\/p>\n

\n

Dom Amore: As season sets on the Sun, franchise\u2019s future gets cloudier by the day thanks to WNBA<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No Silver mettle<\/p>\n

If you missed it, NBC Connecticut\u2019s Gabby Lucivero took on NBA Commissioner Adam Silver<\/a> this week at an event promoting the league\u2019s new TV setup, a short, but telling exchange. Lucivero asked about the NBA\/WNBA opposition to moving the Connecticut Sun to Hartford.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can choose to sell your team in your same market, you cannot choose to sell your team to a different market,\u201d the commish began. \u201cThat\u2019s where it stands right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucivero,<\/a> having none of it, said, \u201cHartford is in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silver snapped: \u201cNo it\u2019s not. (Wow, good comeback) \u2026 A marketing region is different. A team only has the right to play in the market they\u2019re in. That would be like saying the Brooklyn Nets could move to Manhattan because it\u2019s in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

What? No one is proposing the Sun move into another team\u2019s territory, that\u2019s an utterly irrelevant analogy.\u00a0Lucivero called this semantics. \u201cNo, that\u2019s not semantics,\u201d\u00a0Silver insisted. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s semantics to say the Brooklyn Nets could not move to Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucivero represented the frustration here in Connecticut over all this laughably flawed logic that\u2019s threatening to whisk the team to Houston. You almost wish Silver would just say the quiet part out loud, that they want the franchise out of New England so they can fleece a future Boston buyer of their choosing for an expansion team several years from now. The Sun can\u2019t play in Hartford \u2026 because Adam Silver says they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some confusion,\u201d Silver, by now a little tongue-tied, told Lucivero. \u201cThe territory in which a team can market itself is different from a team moving to a different area, and the Mohegan Sun does not have the right to move the team. No team has the right to move, WNBA or NBA, that\u2019s a decision from their partners at the league. That\u2019s not on the table right now, them moving the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they want to sell the team, but keep it at Mohegan Sun, that would be perfectly fine, he said. Sure, except that the reason they have been offered more than $300 million is because the new owners want to play in a bigger arena.<\/p>\n

A signature performance, all in all, from the guy who said in September that, if fans can\u2019t afford to watch NBA games on TV, they can just watch highlights.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019m told our local leaders are still looking for ways to put pressure on the league to let the team stay in Connecticut. My free legal advice: Stay on point, stick to the logic, financial and especially the legal aspects of this, stay away from the \u201cBasketball Capital\u201d and UConn championships theme. They won\u2019t be nudged by that.<\/p>\n

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Dom Amore: UConn\u2019s George Springer is a veteran MLB star. He still plays like a kid in leading Jays<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sunday short takes<\/p>\n

*Don\u2019t forget that WFSB-TV, Channel 3, and sister station WWAX is filling some of the void<\/a> in the UConn TV package with pregame shows for all men\u2019s and women\u2019s home games, and a live broadcast of the men\u2019s exhibition game vs. Michigan State on Oct. 28.<\/p>\n

*Before \u201cthe curse\u201d was reversed, the Red Sox\u2019s AL East championships between 1986-90 were a big deal in these parts. Mike Greenwell, who died this week at 62,<\/a> was a big part of those teams,<\/a> especially in 1988, when he was MVP runner-up. His place in Red Sox history is one of honor.<\/p>\n

*The Windsor High Athletic Hall of Fame banquet<\/a> is Nov. 1, reception at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 at La Notte in East Windsor. The 2025 inductees: Wayne Dobrutsky (football and baseball), Terrance Knighton (football, basketball), Paul Lepak (soccer), Cole Ormsby (football), Michael Phang (soccer, track), Mairin Dudek (soccer, softball), Kelsey Jepsen (swimming), Dominique Fox (coach), Neil Beaulieu (Distinguished Contributor). For ticket information, contact Celeste Over at Sage Park Middle School, 860-687-2030.<\/p>\n

*Liz Mueller, a decorated runner at Waterford High before turning to boxing to become a national Golden Gloves champ, World Cup silver medalist and world lightweight champ, will be among the new inductees to the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame on Oct. 18<\/a> 6 p.m. at the Mohegan Sun ballroom. Matt Godfrey, six-time New England Golden Gloves champ, and Scott \u201cSandman\u201d Pemberton will be inducted with contributors Peter Manfredo Sr., Joe Cusano, and the late Steve Epstein.<\/p>\n

World champ Katie Taylor<\/a> will be honored as Pro Fighter of the Year. Now residing in Vernon, training at the Manchester Ring of Champions Society, Taylor is working with Trainer of the Year Ross Enamait of Waterford. Tickets can be purchased at eventbrite.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Dom Amore: This CT racer exposes UConn fans to life in the fast lane<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

*Seymour\u2019s Nick Anglace<\/a>, driving his UConn car, was involved in a crash in his last SK Light race of the season at Stafford Oct. 3.<\/a> He says he\u2019s doing fine, and the car can<\/a> be repaired or rebuilt in his shop fairly quickly.<\/p>\n

*The Rangers reassigned goalie Callum Tung, one of the stars of UConn\u2019s run<\/a> last year, from the Wolf Pack to Bloomington of the ECHL. Hartford will start the season with Dylan Garand and Talyn Boyko in the crease.<\/p>\n

*UConn grad and East Lyme native Pete Walker has been the Blue Jays\u2019 pitching coach<\/a> since 2012, working for four different managers. Jays pitching decisions, going with rookie Trey Yesavage over veteran starters like Max Scherzer, and the eight-man bullpen strategy for Game 4, in which Walker certainly had a respected voice, were big factors in Toronto\u2019s Division Series victory.<\/p>\n

*Seems like everybody sensed this Bill Belichick comeback<\/a> could be a disaster except the people at UNC who decided to hire him.<\/p>\n

Last word<\/p>\n

Watching the MLB postseason, do you ever wonder how many World Series the Yankees might\u2019ve won if Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter<\/a> worked this well together when they were teammates?<\/p>\n

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Dom Amore: Yankees left with another winter to wonder how to reach the top<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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