Sarah Strong is building her legacy as she leads UConn's next title chase: Mike Anthony

Sarah Strong in 2024-25 played in a lineup with Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd and was the best freshman in America.

Strong in 2025-26 played in a lineup with Fudd - like Bueckers before her, a No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick - and was the best player in America.

Strong as a junior in 2026-27, perhaps with Blanca Quinonez reaching an All-America level beside her, will emerge as one of the best players in UConn women's basketball history.

That's what   get to do here in Connecticut every winter into spring - watch players become legends as one UConn team after another makes runs toward the Final Four and a national championship.

Strong will be favored to repeat as national player of the year, the latest Husky to get more than halfway to legendary status at the midway point of her career. They've come and gone in waves for decades now - Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart and so many others, right through the Bueckers and Fudd era, so disrupted by injuries but dazzling nonetheless.

Just last week, Tina Charles walked through the doors of a New Haven brewery and debuted her new beer, basketball endeavors becoming business ventures. She just retired in May, having led back-to-back perfect championship seasons at UConn before a remarkable 15-year run in the WNBA. She's the league's all-time leading rebounder and second-leading scorer (behind Taurasi). Charles is one of the best professional basketball players in history, perhaps even easy to overlook at times because her stardom was born in the same program as so many others of equal status.  

These are the players we watch blossom under Geno Auriemma. Rebecca Lobo and Sue Bird and Swin Cash and Napheesa Collier and others. Most coaches, most programs, would consider themselves fortunate to have one or two of this ilk - ever. UConn keeps cycling them through, recruiting them, developing them, positioning them.

It's not complicated why UConn has won 12 national championships and enters every season among the favorites to win the next. And 2026-27 is no different. The Huskies have the best player and maybe the best team, considered as the early front-runner with South Carolina, which lost some key players but has reloaded with a top recruit (Oliviyah Edwards) and transfer (Jordan Lee from Texas). Michigan, Duke and Southern Cal, which returns Juju Watkins after she lost all of last season to injury, round out what many believe to be the clear top-five teams in the nation.

UConn will have to get through a couple of them in March, and not every season ends in storybook fashion, of course. The undefeated Huskies raced to a 38-0 record last season but lost to the Gamecocks in a national semifinal. It was UConn's 13^th loss in a Final Four (12^th in a semifinal), meaning the Huskies have actually come away from that last stage without a championship one more time than with one.

We generally know how the majority of a season will play out. We just don't know how each will end. That's the nature of it. UConn looks like an unstoppable force for months, sometimes going undefeated through nonconference play and often going undefeated through conference play, but always knowing it will have to win a game it very well could lose in order to seal the deal.

All a team can do is position itself well, which is what UConn has done annually for the past 35 years. There's very little, if anything, as consistent as the Huskies reaching March with … a chance.

The 2026-27 team has a very good chance. Mainly because of a Strong. And because the entire rotation – even with Fudd and Serah Williams off to the WNBA – is deep and versatile. Strong, assuming good health, will pad numbers that look dominant like those of many players of the year before her, and in doing so carve out a legacy that is uniquely her own. She's already one of the most gifted multi-tool players in UConn history, an inside-and-outside force. How accomplished will she actually be over four years?

Strong last season averaged 18.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.4 steals, 1.6 blocks and 3.8 assists, leading UConn in each of those categories besides assists (second to KK Arnold). Through two seasons, she has 1,356 points, 649 rebounds, 128 blocks, 222 steals and 288 assists.

She won't have to do everything by herself, of course. Quinonez was a revelation last season. The freshman from Ecuador impacted so many games and/or segments of games, often looking like the best player on the court. She also was inconsistent while growing into a role, adjusting to a new level. One would think she'll be much more solid as a sophomore after averaging 20.4 minutes, 10.7 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists and two steals as a freshman.

UConn has another heralded freshman in Olivia Vukosa, the national Gatorade player of the year, and upperclassmen guards returning in Arnold, Ashlynn Shade and Kayleigh Heckel. Freshman Marine Dursus, an experienced French professional, will add a lot to that group. Even Fudd's departure leaves UConn lacking the same firepower and spurt scoring, the Huskies are solid on the perimeter. In Jana El Alfy, Vukosa and Gandy Malou-Mamel up front to support Strong and Quinonez, the Huskies have plenty of size, too.

We'll see it all come together, get better and better from November to March, and UConn will be there at the end, probably with Strong lined up to win another player of the year award, having added so much to her illustrious career. And then we'll see how it goes from there. There will be some games the Huskies have to win. Not all of them will be easy.

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