How UConn built its championship roster

By nature of the national championship, UConn’s 2025 title only represents a single season. The Huskies came out on top this time but next March, the cycle will repeat and another champion will be crowned.

The 2024-25 team’s journey only began in November, but the roots of the roster date back nearly a decade. They go beyond the standard four-year recruiting cycle and even connect to other seemingly unrelated programs.

This is how the 2025 national champions were built.

Planting the seed

The first bond between two 2025 national championships actually had nothing to do with UConn at all. In the summer of 2017, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd met for the first time at a USA Basketball training camp. Initially, Fudd didn’t think much of her counterpart.

“I watched her play and I was like, ‘Oh, I have nothing to worry about this girl,’” she recalled in 2021. “Like, ‘I have a better chance of making it than her.’”

But when the two made the team and traveled to Argentina for the 2017 FIBA U16 Americas championship, they formed a connection that has lasted over the next eight years. While UConn rarely needs external help in landing top recruits, Bueckers’ presence ended up being a major reason Fudd chose the Huskies.

The first piece in place

The first building block of UConn’s 2025 national championship was put into place on Sept. 27, 2018 when an athletic wing from Ossining, New York announced her commitment to the Huskies — Aubrey Griffin.

At the time, UConn was a little more than two years removed from its last title. Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson were gearing up for their senior season. The Huskies were still stuck in the American Athletic Conference and news of their move to the Big East was still nine months away. Sarah Strong was just 12 years old.

Griffin ended up being teammates with 33 different players over the course of her six years in Storrs, ranging from Batouly Camara (who began her college career in 2015), to Strong, Morgan Cheli and Allie Ziebell (who are slated to graduate in 2028).

Securing the superstar

UConn picked up the first member of its eventual big three on April Fool’s Day in 2019 when Paige Bueckers announced her decision. She’d eventually become the Huskies’ next transcendent player, eventually taking her place alongside the program’s all-time greats: Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart.

Bueckers arrived in Storrs in a freshman class that went six deep — tied for the largest in program history. Despite that, nobody else remained by the 2025 title. Nika Mühl and Aaliyah Edwards played four seasons then graduated while Mir McLean, Piath Gabriel and Autumn Chassion all transferred out.

The domino effect

On April 19, 2019, longtime UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell resigned after an investigation revealed she made “racially insensitive” comments and pressured players to continue through injuries. That move had ripple effects that helped UConn win the national championship six years later.

To replace Hatchell, the Tar Heels hired then-Princeton coach Courtney Banghart. In turn, the Tigers landed then-Tufts coach (and former UConn forward) Carla Berube. A few months later, a little-known guard out of San Marino, California named Kaitlyn Chen committed to Princeton.

With one of his former players at the helm, Geno Auriemma scheduled a game with the Tigers in Dec. 2022. During that contest, Chen caught his eye. When she exhausted her eligibility in the Ivy League and entered the transfer portal, Chen’s performance at Gampel Pavilion stuck in Auriemma’s mind and the Huskies reeled her in out of the portal.

Had Berube never been hired at Princeton, Chen may have never landed on UConn’s radar.

The extra year

In March 2020, the Covid pandemic struck the United States and forced everything to a halt — including sports. The NCAA canceled all competition, including that year’s women’s basketball tournament, though that was only the start.

As college sports prepared to restart for the 2020-21 season, the NCAA granted a blanket waiver, giving all athletes an additional year of eligibility whether they played through the pandemic or not.

2024-25 was the last season of the Covid fifth-years and UConn took advantage. It gave Chen the opportunity to graduate from Princeton and still play another season while it allowed Aubrey Griffin to come back after tearing her ACL in January 2024.

A new era begins

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