Women’s Final Four 2026: How UConn star Sarah Strong found her voice

PHOENIX — TWO DAYS earlier than the Remaining 4, Sarah Strong was so nervous that she could not eat.

However the UConn Huskies‘ famous person wasn’t anxious about her workforce’s upcoming nationwide semifinal matchup towards 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. Robust dreads public talking.

Robust was about to be awarded the Naismith Trophy for nationwide participant of the 12 months. The ceremony honoring her and different award finalists was imminent. She must go on stage to obtain her trophy and provides a couple of remarks in entrance of a crowd.

In different phrases: a concoction of issues that Robust — identified for her reserved public nature, succinct information convention solutions and disinterest within the highlight — would favor to bypass.

“It is the weirdest factor,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma stated final month. “Theoretically, these two issues do not go collectively: ‘I need to be the perfect participant within the nation,’ however then when individuals say, ‘Oh, there’s Sarah Robust, she’s the perfect participant within the nation'” — Auriemma bodily recoils as he imitates Robust — “she hides from it.”

In the event that they ever existed, the times of Robust hiding within the wings are gone. Her expertise made that inconceivable. Final April, Gamecocks coach Daybreak Staley deemed her able to being the perfect to return out of UConn — and he or she has accomplished nothing to dissuade that notion. Main the No. 1 Huskies in factors, rebounds, steals and blocks, Robust has swept the nationwide participant of the 12 months awards to this point.

None of that issues to Robust — she may be the one individual to explain successful the Naismith as a “cool facet quest.” However her maturation on and off the court docket 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 child that type of needs to slot in,” stated North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, who recruited Robust whereas she attended highschool in Durham in hopes of preserving her in-state. “I feel now she realizes her model of becoming in is simply being higher than everyone else.

“I feel she simply is beginning to perceive the power that’s Sarah Robust.”

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AZZI FUDD WASN’T positive what to consider Robust after they roomed collectively in the course of the Huskies’ journey to the Bahamas round Thanksgiving 2024. Regardless of being roommates for per week, Fudd estimates most of their conversations lasted about 30 seconds.

Different teammates have comparable tales about their first encounters with Robust. For Allie Ziebell, a fellow sophomore who took her official go to to Storrs with Robust, the mixture of their quiet personalities made for a troublesome pairing. “Actually, I really feel like each Sarah interplay I had earlier than was so awkward,” Ziebell stated, laughing.

Redshirt sophomore Jana El Alfy, in the meantime, crossed paths with Robust at a FIBA occasion in Hungary earlier than they turned Huskies and thought, “Both she hates me or she is simply shy.”

As soon as on campus, Robust got here out of her shell off the court docket. The Huskies describe her as a goofball, somebody who can simply decide up new abilities and excels — nearly annoyingly — at all the pieces she tries. Ziebell describes her as the primary buddy to test on somebody after they’re having a foul day.

On the court docket, Robust’s versatility, IQ and smoothness had been obvious instantly.

“[If] you are constructing a participant, how might you construct one thing any totally different, any higher?” Auriemma stated not too long ago. However enjoying alongside star upperclassmen Fudd and Paige Bueckers, final 12 months’s No. 1 WNBA draft decide, meant Robust tended to yield to others.

“Often, as a freshman, you are available, you need to acquire everyone’s respect,” Bueckers informed ESPN. “You do not need to step on toes … I needed her to assume that it was her workforce, to the place she felt assured sufficient to take over a sport and did not should be, like, defer to Paige, defer to Azzi.”

That shift occurred final March. Robust had 22 factors and 17 rebounds within the Elite Eight and 24 factors and 15 rebounds within the nationwide title sport. She left Tampa, Florida, with a worthy case for Remaining 4 most excellent participant — and with onlookers questioning how she might prime her freshman season.

WITH BUECKERS OFF to the WNBA and this system readying for Fudd’s departure, a extra aggressive sophomore season for Robust was a mandate. She wanted to change into extra assured and assertive, extra comfy not simply main by instance but additionally in utilizing her voice.

And she or he 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 may be on the planet.”

“Her largest flaw is her unselfishness,” Bueckers stated, “and I feel that is additionally her superpower too.”

“I feel, too, [it’s about] serving to reframe what being egocentric is,” added Allison Feaster, Robust’s mom and a former Harvard star who for 2 seasons led the nation in scoring within the Nineties. “In case your workforce wants your rating, in case your workforce wants the ball to get in your arms, the workforce wants you to place strain on the opposite workforce’s protection in no matter kind which may be, then doing the other, to me, is being egocentric.”

Sport by sport, Robust has come into her personal — and proved herself as essentially the most dominant participant within the sport. Her 31 profession video games of scoring not less than 20 factors are tied with Breanna Stewart for essentially the most by a UConn participant by way of their first two seasons with this system over the previous 25 seasons. With 26 extra factors, she will break Chamique Holdsclaw’s report for many factors by way of a participant’s first two NCAA tournaments.

“She’s rather more comfy being herself, simply authentically her,” UConn junior Ashlynn Shade stated. “I feel that is translated to her on the court docket, too, as a result of she’s simply so highly effective, so sturdy, assured, that she’s simply unstoppable.”

And when UConn has wanted her most in March, Robust has delivered.

Within the Candy 16, the Huskies trailed after the primary quarter for less than the second time this season, their offense out of kinds towards North Carolina’s stingy protection. Robust 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 Robust spoke up within the locker room earlier than Auriemma got here in, telling her teammates that in the event that they performed their sport, 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 am not going to be the one to speak and say essentially the most issues, but when I say one thing right here and there, and it is fairly impactful once I do,” Robust stated. “I do know that workforce appears as much as me and Azzi, so we attempt to do an excellent job of main.”

Two days later, the Huskies had been in a dogfight towards Notre Dame. They’d hassle getting Robust touches early on. After enjoying 38 minutes within the earlier sport, her drained legs, she admitted after the sport, made her extra stagnant than traditional.

However she acknowledged her workforce wanted her to indicate up. And within the second half, she willed herself to fifteen of UConn’s 38 factors. She discovered her mother within the stands after securing the win, leaning over the courtside stats desk in exhaustion. “You dug in, child,” Feaster informed her, as Robust wiped her forehead and let loose a “phew.”

“She is aware of that when it is time to win video games, that she has an enormous duty,” Auriemma stated. “Some gamers shrink back from it, and he or she likes it “

Feaster and Auriemma do not assume she feels strain. She simply sees it, they are saying, as doing no matter she must do to win.

“I truthfully do not assume it registers in her thoughts, the issues that she’s doing individually,” Feaster stated. “I do not understand how she even mirrored on being a nationwide champion in her first season. It isn’t one thing that drives her, the person facet.”

Her looseness, her calmness, in flip, have change into the workforce’s character this season, serving to the Huskies shoulder the burden of an undefeated report with a relative ease that has stunned even Auriemma.

“There’s a degree of confidence that Sarah has that I feel she lifts them as much as someplace the place they would not have the ability to be by themselves or with perhaps anyone totally different,” Auriemma stated. “So, they play with confidence realizing they’ve her, and that is in all probability the perfect praise that I can provide her.”

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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 12 months. And Robust is prepared.

The Huskies stand and erupt in cheers as Robust’s identify is named, and he or she takes the stage. They begin chanting, “speech! speech! speech!”

Robust approaches the rostrum and stands up straight, unwavering. She had spent the previous day getting ready some remarks with UConn’s sports activities data director. Robust speaks for 45 seconds — “I do not say loads, however I genuinely do love you guys,” she says to her teammates as she closes — earlier than returning to her seat with a smile.

That is not the final of the calls for for Robust. 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 Related Press participant of the 12 months in addition to the winner of the Wade Trophy for participant of the 12 months — that means extra ceremonies, extra standing ovations, extra media and extra acceptance speeches.

On the festivities for the Wade — lower than 24 hours earlier than the Remaining 4 sport towards South Carolina — she’s requested if she needs to make any remarks.

“No,” she says, “I’ve stated sufficient.”

She’s saving the remaining for the court docket.