After two-year apprenticeship, KK Arnold is ready to be UConn's top point guard

Welcome to the UConn WBB Weekly, a recap of everything that happened in the world of UConn women’s basketball over the past week.

Sign up to get the Weekly in your inbox every Thursday or subscribe to get our premium newsletter which includes game coverage, analysis, recruiting updates, and more!

Headlines

Analysis

• Caroline Ducharme isn't limiting her dreams in final year at UConn: 'Who's to say I can't get back to who I used to be?'

Last week’s Weekly

• After snapping national title drought, UConn has its swagger back

After two-year apprenticeship, KK Arnold is ready to be UConn's top point guard

KK Arnold has held a variety of roles during her first two years at UConn. As a freshman, she started the final 32 games alongside two other point guards in Paige Bueckers and Nika Mühl. This past season, she exclusively came off the bench, serving more as a spark plug and defensive menace than a true floor general with Bueckers and Kaitlyn Chen in charge of the offense.

But now an upperclassmen with the Huskies, Arnold is the veteran at the position with sophomore Kayleigh Heckel and freshman Kelis Fisher set to back her up. She’s waited her turn and is finally in line to take over as UConn’s floor general.

“This is her year, this is her team,” Azzi Fudd said. “She's our point guard, so she's gonna lead us… She's in control, she can call in the plays and all that.”

Arnold is well-equipped for the role. Though she ranked fourth on the Huskies with 112 assists last season, that mark put her in the 96th percentile nationally. She also owned an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.33, good for the top one percent of the country.

Along with her passing, Arnold’s speed allows her to push the pace or break a press, though she has enough experience to know when to slow things down as well. Defensively, she’s disruptive — she was in the top two percent nationally with 61 steals — and also has the quickness and strength to shut down opposing ball-handlers 1v1.

Arnold has all the traits to be UConn’s next great point guard. The biggest difference will be the additional responsibility she’ll have to shoulder this season — particularly in the leadership department. Geno Auriemma asks a lot of his floor generals and wants them to be accountable when things go wrong — even if it’s not their fault.

That means ball-handlers have no choice but to lead. Luckily, Arnold has been preparing to take on that burden from the moment she stepped on campus.

As a freshman, she explained that she came to UConn to learn from the best — both in terms of basketball and leadership.

“We have leaders like them and seniors like them, as soon as they leave or however it is, they prepared you well enough to take on and do whatever it takes to be that leader and step in their shoes,” Arnold said at the time.

As a sophomore, she knew it was her final year as an apprentice, so she kept a close eye on Bueckers and tried to soak up as much as she could.

“Still having Paige here, it's helped me through the ropes of a leadership style,” Arnold said.

Now, it’s Arnold’s turn to take that mantle. As UConn reconvened for summer workouts in June, the rising junior jumped right into her new leadership role.

“I feel like my voice can be a good thing and a positive for the newcomers — the transfers and the freshmen… knowing the ropes around our program, knowing what coach wants, what we want as a team and how we want to go about things on the court,” Arnold explained.

“I see her being vocal, her being confident on the floor,” Fudd added.

Even with more on her shoulders, Arnold doesn’t plan on remaining stagnant as a player. She wants to continue to make an impact defensively while creating more offense for herself.

Last season, Arnold had a knack for getting a layup at key moments but otherwise didn’t put the ball in the basket all too often. She averaged just 5.5 points and hit double-figures on just six occasions, never topping 15 points in a single game. It didn’t help that her 3-point shooting regressed significantly from 32.6 percent as a freshman to 21.3 percent last season.

If Arnold can fix that and force opposing teams to defend her out on the perimeter, it’ll create chances to drive to the rim. She still has to take those opportunities when they arise, so she’s trying to attack more with the ball in her hands.

“I'm just also just finding my spots on the offensive end, being more aggressive, being more assertive,” Arnold said.

She’s well-prepared to take the next step in her career, though. This will be Arnold’s first time as UConn’s lead point guard, but she’s learned from some of the best to come through the program. Mühl owns the Huskies’ single-game, single-season and career assist records, Bueckers has the freshman mark and Chen orchestrated the offense to a national championship.

Arnold’s time is now — even if she’s not thrilled about already being halfway through her college career.

“I'm not gonna lie, it's very sickening to think about,” she laughed.

Best of social media

UConn is in LA for the ESPYs:

Ayanna Patterson is back on the court:

Kayleigh Heckel is doing well at the U19 World Cup:

Swing and a miss: