The Liberation Of Losing

The stunning end to UConn’s 111-game win streak has given the Huskies—and their breakout leading scorers—a new outlook.

- Mechelle Voepel

These are not the lingering images you expect from a UConnseason: The smallest player on the floor, Mississippi State guard Morgan William, hitting the shot just before the overtime buzzer. Thousands of fans—supporting the Bulldogs specifically and underdogs in general—erupting in joy. A locker room of dejected Huskies after their 111-game winning streak ends, and Napheesa Collier saying: “It happened at the worst possible time for us.”

Skip forward several months, through redemption-seeking summer workouts, through a team trip to play exhibition games in coach Geno Auriemma’s native Italy. Then to Santa Barbara, California, for a USA Basketball camp in the fall, where Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson, who led the Huskies in scoring last season as sophomores,held their own alongside other college standouts and WNBA pros.

The sting of that national semifinal game in March, and falling short of a fifth consecutive and 12th overall NCAA title, has given way to a sense of liberation.

“I think that was something we knew pretty soon after that loss happened,” Samuelson says. “We kind of adjusted quickly. The season had felt a little like we were playing to try to hold on to something that people had done before us.”