Kayleigh Heckel believes UConn is 'the place I need to be'

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Kayleigh Heckel believes UConn is 'the place I need to be'

When USC traveled to play UConn at the XL Center last December, Kayleigh Heckel had plenty of friends and family make the short drive from her hometown of Port Chester, New York. After all, they didn’t have many better opportunities to see her play in person with the Trojans. Getting to Hartford was a lot easier than making the cross-country trek to Los Angeles — even if most had to pay to get into the building.

“I actually ran out of tickets to give to people so they had to buy some on their own,” Heckel laughed.

Now, her family will have plenty of chances to see her live in action. After spending her freshman year on the West Coast at USC, Heckel hit the transfer portal this offseason and landed at UConn. Now, every home game — along with a handful of other neutral site and road contests — will be within driving distance.

“My family didn't get to come out to too many home games last year,” she said. “I'm excited they'll be able to get to almost all of them.”

Despite coming from a close-knit family, Heckel surprised even herself by picking the Trojans out of high school. Her other four finalists — Alabama, Stanford and Tennessee — also required a flight but USC was the farthest. Heckel understood the distance meant she wouldn’t see her family as often but she believed it was the right choice for her basketball career.

“I didn't really think I was going to ever go that far,” Heckel said. “At the time, I really thought it was the place that I would be able to be the best version of myself.”

It didn’t ultimately work out with the Trojans, though. So when she began to re-evaluate her options in the transfer portal, UConn didn’t just make sense basketball-wise. The proximity to home helped, too. While Heckel isn’t the latest Connecticut native to suit up for the Huskies, she’s not far off — literally. She was born in Greenwich and grew up in the first town over the border in New York. Had the line been drawn about a mile further west, she’d be a bonafide hometown hero.

“It’s the place I need to be. It's a place that I think I can even become the best version of myself,” Heckel said. “Now I'm back home, that'll make me feel a lot better. I get to see my family more often. They get to come to the games and stuff. So I'm just excited for them to be able to be more part of the journey. If you have a bad day, they’re less than two hours away. I'm super excited to be able to see them all the time.”

So far, the Huskies’ program has been everything she’s wanted. Heckel has two main goals for her college career: First, she wants to develop as a player to reach her full potential, which UConn can offer better than any other program in the nation. Heckel knows she’ll have to earn it though, so she’s embraced the hard work during the summer session.

“I’d say the intensity is a lot higher than where I was previously,” she said. “I know that it's going to be a place that makes me the best version of myself, that’s going to push me to be even better.”

UConn is also the perfect place for Heckel to chase her other goal: Winning.

“My mindset always is to try to win,” she said. “The coaching staff is super successful and they've had so much success here. I'm just really hoping to be part of that and hoping to bring national championships to UConn.”

Even though the Huskies won it all last season and lost Paige Bueckers, they still look like early favorites to repeat. The roster is loaded with talent thanks to a strong returning core mixed with an elite class of newcomers. While the competition for minutes will be fierce, Heckel believes her play style is well-suited for such an environment.

“I love to pass it and look for my teammates and get them in places where they can be successful,” she said. “So I think that having so many talented players on the team, it's going to be really fun to be able to pass to them and have them hit shots, have them make some big plays for our team.”

Heckel is looking forward to doing that in front of a friendly crowd, too. While she grew up watching UConn games, she didn’t attend one until she was on the court herself last December. Heckel saw the fan support firsthand as a visitor but will now experience it as a member of the team.

“It was a super cool atmosphere,” she said. “It's really cool to be able to play in that every home game this year.”

Nobody is more excited for it than her maternal grandfather, though.

“He's the one person in my family that played basketball,” Heckel said. “So he's just really excited to watch me play.”

All of that will come in due time, though. Heckel is in her earliest days at UConn, so she’s still trying to get acclimated to the new program. While there will almost certainly be some bumps along the way, she’s confident she made the right choice.

“It's the basketball capital of the world,” she said. “I always dreamed of being at a place as great as this. So I'm super excited to get to work here and contribute to what they've already created.”

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