Picture this…it’s Spring 2024.
It’s your senior year for the UConn women’s basketball program, and you just led your team to the Final Four, with only eight players healthy/available.
What you’re picturing was Aaliyah Edwards’ reality, who led her team to the Final Four against the Iowa Hawkeyes, alongside her teammates Paige Bueckers and Nika Mühl.
“That group that came, Paige [Bueckers], Nika [Mühl], Aaliyah [Edwards], obviously, they had a huge impact as a group, and they all kinda did it, together sometimes, individually sometimes,” Head coach Geno Auriemma stated to the media Tuesday afternoon, “I thought that NCAA tournament in the bubble, I thought Aaliyah [Edwards] may have been one of the top five players in the entire tournament.”
Now, just two years later, Edwards is being inducted into the Huskies of Honor. A plaque alongside the best in the program, to etch her name in the walls of history at Gampel Pavilion.
In her time as a UConn Husky, the Kingston, Ontario native totaled 1,861 points and 1,020 rebounds, ranking No. 16 in the program for total career points and No. 8 for total career rebounds.
“Sometimes careers go smoothly; sometimes it’s rocky, she [Edwards] managed to make the best out of a very difficult situation,” Auriemma said.
Edwards was drafted No. 6 overall in the 2024 WNBA draft by the Washington Mystics and currently plays for the Connecticut Sun. In addition, Edwards participates in Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier’s Unrivaled League, playing for the Lunar Owls.
Ahead of the current top-ranked UConn’s (21-0, 11-0) conference matchup versus Xavier (10-10, 3-8), Edwards will be honored in a pre-game ceremony that will occur 30 minutes before tip-off. The ceremony will be streamed on the UConn women’s basketball X and Facebook accounts, as well as the UConn Huskies’ YouTube channel.
The Huskies are coming off a 92-52 win over the Seton Hall Pirates Saturday afternoon, where multiple players racked up double-digit performances, including Sarah Strong and Blanca Quiñonez.
The Big East announced this week that both Strong and Quiñonez were the Big East Player and Freshman of the Week, respectively.
This week marks the seventh time Quiñonez has been awarded Freshman of the Week and was integral in the Huskies’ win over Seton Hall.
“Having someone like her on the floor who can score at any time and then makes great passes as well, it makes it so hard on the defense and really opens it up for everyone else.” Graduate guard Azzi Fudd said to the media after the Seton Hall game.
As the Huskies make their way towards February and eventually, March, Strong and Quiñonez will be a force to be reckoned with against opponents. Both forwards have proven this season that they can change the tide of any game, should their squad struggle at any point.
After South Carolina defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores on Sunday, UConn remains the only undefeated team in women’s college basketball, with a 21-0 record. The last time the Huskies achieved an undefeated season was in 2015-2016, when the Huskies won their fourth consecutive National Championship.
In terms of the Xavier Musketeers, the Huskies should keep an eye on guard Mariyah Noel, who has been averaging 16.1 points per game in her junior year campaign.
Noel is coming off a 20-point performance over the Georgetown Hoyas, where the Musketeers lost 65-52.
The Musketeers and UConn have faced once so far this season, in Ohio on Nov. 30. The Huskies took the win 104-39, and Strong and junior Ashlynn Shade led the team with a matching points total of 14.
Tip-off is scheduled for 8 p.m. If Husky fans are unable to attend in person at Gampel Pavilion, they can tune in to this conference matchup on Peacock.