STORRS -- There are more than enough reasons to honor members of the 2015 and '16 UConn women's teams for their basketball achievements.
These things stand alone and speak for themselves, especially for those who played on four straight national championship teams, the ones who have gone on to become significant pro players. But for all of them, particularly Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier and Morgan Tuck, just to name three who were expected back in Storrs to be honored Thursday night, the impact reaches beyond the buckets and the box scores.
"It inspires me so much, just having alumni like that advocating for women's basketball," junior KK Arnold said. "Having them go through the program and coming back, just kind of seeing what they do on and off the court, it just kind of inspires me to be that way off the court and carry myself a different way."
Stewart and Collier have been MVPs in the WNBA, fought each other for championships, won Olympic Gold Medals together, and any short list of great players in the world at the moment would include them. For one season, they overlapped at UConn, winning the 2016 NCAA Tournament.
Their impact, as evidence by their sharing of Sports Illustrated Innovators of the Year Award for 2025, reaches far beyond the court. As WNBA players fight for a greater share of the revenue they have been growing, Collier and Stewart assumed leadership roles for the players' association, high-profile vice presidents under Nneka Ogwumike. They're willing to stand out front with talks contentious and apparently at an impasse, and if there is a work stoppage delaying next season, to stand up for the rest of the league.
"Phee didn't say much when she was here," Geno Auriemma said. "She was just a nice, quiet kid who played great every day, and Stewie was not that much different. These guys were really quiet guys when they were here. I don't know this to be (a fact), but I could just see the scenario where the rest of the players would look and go, 'Hey, I think these two guys would be perfect for us ... you guys want to get involved?' That comes with the territory, too, what you've done, what your reputation is, you've been a winner everywhere you've ever been. They would be the ultimate 'Google-me' guys."
The WNBPA rank and file have naturally gravitated to and rallied around Stewart and Collier, who also pooled their resources and reputations and attracted investors to create Unrivaled, the off-season league that not only brings in new TV and advertising revenue for players not only creates more leverage in collective bargaining with the NBA and WNBA but allows players to supplement their WNBA salaries without going overseas all winter. Unrivaled's second season is off and running, though Collier will have to sit on the sidelines with leg injuries.
The early, original WNBA players were trying just to launch a pro league and keep it afloat. The new star players, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, brought the cachet and the following to fill arenas and push the league into the sports mainstream, and their backing is critical for the union, but they have not been around long enough for a leadership role in negotiations such as these. This is a time for players to play hardball, and Stewart and Collier have provided the voice and the backbone and whatever they end up accomplishing will have long-lasting effects, in some ways similar to the 1960s and 70s baseball players, the Curt Floods, Catfish Hunters, Dave McNallys and Andy Messersmiths, who helped their union bring down the old system in which owners held all the cards.
While Collier and Stewart have accepted the duty to be labor firebrands, one of their UConn teammates, Morgan Tuck, is making her mark on the management side as the youngest GM in the WNBA. The Connecticut Sun appear destined to be sold and relocated so it's unclear what Tuck's future would be with that franchise but she has asserted herself in player personnel reaching across the Atlantic to find players and coaches under Jennifer Rizzotti's front office breaking the glass ceiling and serving as a role model for post-playing aspirations.
"When they're leaving here, you think, 'they're going to be successful," Auriemma said. "Then you look back 10 years and the level of success really is beyond what you could have predicted back there. Could you see Stewie being MVP of the league? Sure; nobody would be surprised by that. Or 'Pheesa; and how far she has come. Or Morgan Tuck being where she is; those things are not surprising but the level they've reached; the chances they've taken; the risks they've taken; how their voice has become so important in women's basketball—not just the WNBA—not settling for 'I show up; I play; I get paid; I go home'—but I want to leave a lasting impact—that's pretty commendable as far as I'm concerned."
Stewart came to UConn with a stated goal of winning four championships and made good on it, 2013-16. She was expected at Gampel along with Collier, Tuck, Kia Nurse, still active in The W and force behind an AAU program in her native Canada; Moriah Jefferson; Tierney Lawlor; Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis; Kia Nurse; Briana Pulido; Katie Lou Samuelson; Kiah Stokes. The 2015 and 16 teams were to be inducted, as units, in the Huskies of honor.
"That was a part of the reason I came here," said Serah Williams, who transferred from Wisconsin. "Just to see what it takes to be on that other side of being successful in women's basketball."
Their achievements at UConn helped to cement the current culture of high expectations and high reward in which the 2025 champions and current top-ranked players thrive. The efforts and risks Stewart and Collier are undertaking and the executive path Tuck has paved will make the WNBA a better place for future players including the ones who were to help honor them Thursday night.
"Those players have done a lot for us," sophomore Kayleigh Heckel said. "They've done a lot for the program and for women's basketball in general and I think when they were playing here it wasn't as big so being able to honor them now that women's basketball has grown so much will be a cool opportunity for them. In The W taking on leadership roles you see Napheesa and Stewie doing those things for the next generation so I look up to them a lot."