Behind Ice Brady's Big East Tournament breakthrough

Ice Brady’s breakout at the Big East Tournament didn’t begin with Aaliyah Edwards’ injury on Saturday. When Brady checked in after Edwards left the game at the 6:02 mark of the third quarter, she was still the same uncertain player that she’d been all season long.

“When I got subbed in, I was a little still anxious, not really sure how I was gonna go about it,” Brady said.

Nika Mühl quickly changed that. On UConn’s very next possession, the senior point guard drove to the rim and got fouled. Before she went to the line, Mühl huddled the team up and delivered a challenge to Brady.

“She got in my face and she's like, ‘Don't get —’ [with] other words I can't say,” Brady revealed. “I was like, ‘Okay,’ and that like snapped me in it.’”

It proved to be exactly what she needed. Brady didn’t leave the floor the rest of the weekend and averaged 10.3 points and 5.3 rebounds, earning a spot on the all-tournament team. Paige Bueckers was the only other Husky to average double-figures across the three games.

“Ice responds to that, believe it or not…She likes being challenged. She likes when people get after her,” Geno Auriemma said. “Like Nika probably did — you can really get after her and say, ‘I expect you to do this.’ And Ice responds to that.”

It’s never been a question of talent with Brady. From the moment she stepped on campus, her coaches and teammates have raved about her abilities. Instead, Brady needed to overcome the mental hurdles.

“I don't think she knows how good she is. I don't think she understands how hard she works and how all that works and is gonna pay off,” Mühl said. “She proved to herself foremost that she can do it.”

Before the Big East Tournament, Brady’s season had been a struggle. Although she had an entire year to acclimate to both the school and the program while recovering from a knee injury that ended her true freshman season before it began, that familiarity didn’t help on the basketball court. For a while, Brady felt lost.

“I had a hard time getting used to his coaching style and just trying to understand what he was trying to get out of me,” she said about Auriemma. “At times, I didn't see what he saw and that made it harder for me.”

Brady didn’t exactly help herself out, either.

“Only we as a team know how hard-headed she is, how stubborn she is,” Mühl said. “She's worse than us.”

The low point came in December when UConn traveled to Texas. Brady got her first career start in an attempt to give the Huskies enough size to match up with the Longhorns. But things went south from the opening tip and UConn found itself in a 15-2 hole that it never climbed out of. Brady finished the day with four points, three rebounds, three fouls, and five turnovers.

“I felt I came up short for the team and then I struggled after that,” she said.

Auriemma took the blame for putting Brady in a bad spot, but that game also changed the way he coached her.

“I put those guys in impossible situations, specifically Ice. But I always want to see whether Ice is going to compete,” he said. “I just thought she didn't compete. She was non-competitive, and that really bothered me. I realized that I needed to be much harder on her. I needed to demand more from her.”

There were signs over the next few months, though they were few and far between. She scored 17 points at St. John’s on Jan. 13 and had 11 points and 14 rebounds at Xavier on Feb. 14, as well as 10 points against Georgetown the next game.

Yet the lows always had a bigger impact on Brady than the highs.

“Ice is her own worst critic, her own worst enemy,” Auriemma said.

It wasn’t until Brady lost the safety net of Edwards’ presence and had no other choice but to perform that she finally put it all together.

“Seeing Aaliyah go down was very surreal moment for me just because I knew that I was next up,” she said. “If I was leaning on the circumstances of everything, I would definitely not have had the confidence that I did.”

For as well as Brady performed across the three games, the most impressive part of her weekend might be that she played 40 minutes in both the semifinals and final, surpassing her previous career-high of 27 minutes.

Again, it came back to the fact that she had no other choice.

“This is all we got. So that also clicked in and gave me no excuses to be tired,” Brady said.

That’s not something that could’ve happened earlier in the season.

“If she knew Aaliyah was on the bench waiting for her to get subbed out, she wouldn’t have played like this because she would have taken it easy on herself,” Auriemma said. ‘She would have went like, ‘Alright, I need a breather, man. I gotta go sit down. Somebody get me out.’”

He continued: “I forget who we were playing one game…She looked over at me and she goes, ‘I'm tired.’ I said, ‘I don't give a sh*t what you are. You're not coming out.’ And you know what? She finished. But she had an out, so she would take it.”

Now, Brady will have to keep it going when Edwards returns for the NCAA Tournament — especially since she’ll no longer be UConn’s only choice down low. She’ll have an out again.

It’s impossible to know for certain whether Brady will just pick up where she left off in a week, but everyone — including herself — believes this new version of her is here to stay.

“Just that stacking, building the good days, the bad days, and all the journey preparing me for this, and now I'm starting to understand a little bit better,” she said.

“I know she's not ever gonna go back,” Mühl said.

“I hope that this feels so good and that she's so proud of herself that she'll want to keep experiencing this as we go forward,” Auriemma said. “When Aaliyah does come back, we have more good players on our team than before Aaliyah got hurt, for sure.”

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