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For one UConn women’s basketball standout, the pain is fading, but fueling new championship chase
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- For one UConn women’s basketball standout, the pain is fading, but fueling new championship chase
STORRS — After transferring to UConn, her first season with the women's basketball team was a joyous, triumphant ride … until the moment it wasn't.
The Huskies missed a lot of layups in Phoenix when they lost to South Carolina in the NCAA semifinal game on April 3, and the dream of an undefeated season and another championship was already out of reach when Kayleigh Heckel missed one in the final seconds. Reality set in and it hit her hard, as losing in March Madness is supposed to hit Huskies hard. She came back up the court in tears, to be consoled by her teammates , one reaching to lift up her chin.
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Disappointment fades, time heals — for the most part. But no athlete wants to experience something like that twice. That game has been on Kayleigh Heckel's mind all spring and summer as she gets ready for Year Two at UConn.
"It's kind of hard to not think about it every day when you're training," Heckel said. "Even when things are not going well, or when you go into practice one day and you're not really feeling the same high energy, you think about that game, you think about everything we didn't do to win it. So I think about that game every day, since that day."
Heckel, 5-foot-9 guard from just over the state line in Port Chester, N.Y., and Long Island Lutheran, played for Southern Cal as a freshman, where there were championship expectations before JuJu Watkins got hurt. Heckel played 18 minutes in the regional final which UConn eliminated USC on the way to the 2025 national championship.
She transferred back across the country, close to home to become a Husky herself, and she played an integral part as the Huskies won the first 38 games of the season, two short of the ultimate goal. Heckel averaged 7.0 points, 2.8 assists, 2.7 rebounds, very productive for 18 1/2 minutes per game. She was 2-for-8 in that 62-48 loss to South Carolina, as the Huskies shot 31 percent as a team.
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Along the way, Heckel became the second from UConn, the first since Maya Moore, to win the NCAA's Elite Scholar-Athlete Award for women's basketball, with her 3.967 cumulative grade-point average, majoring in analytics and information management. So if the three months since that devastating moment stays with her, she has been able to put it in perspective.
"It didn't end the way we wanted it to, but you can't really just ignore the rest of the season," Heckel said. "Being undefeated in the regular season is something that doesn't happen very often, so just to be a part of that kind of group and say we did that, that's the highlight for me. And the Big East championship, it's really exciting to win, win as much as we did. Even though we didn't win at the end, you can learn from that and get used to winning."
Now she is getting ready for her second year at UConn, her third in college. Heckel has goals to become a more disruptive defensive player; more assertive on the court and behind the scenes.
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"You can always work on every part of your game," Heckel said, "work on the things that weren't my thing last year. Having that intensity on defense is really important, the coaches have talked to me about that. Trying to be a more vocal leader. You don't have to be a senior to be a leader, so I'm going to try to step it up. … My confidence has gotten a lot better since I've been here. I probably didn't come in with the most confidence, so offensively, I'm looking for my own shot, being more aggressive, I've gotten better with that, trying to step forward with that even more going into the season."
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The roster's composition is different now, particularly in the backcourt, with Azzi Fudd , the No.1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft, now starring for the Dallas Wings . It will take a village to replace her, and in the Huskies' case it will be a global village, with newcomers Jovana Popovic and Marine Dursus from Europe joining Heckel, KK Arnold, Ashlynn Shade and Kelis Fisher.
Arnold, the senior, is likely to continue as the team's primary court general, with competition for other roles.
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"No one can ever replace Azzi," Heckel said. "It's going to take a lot of different people getting better and pouring into themselves. As a team, we're going to do as much as we can, we need a new identity. It's not the same team as last year, and no one person is going to step in and replace Azzi. She impacted the game for us on both ends, so it will take everybody getting a little better. Defensively, Azzi set a standard for us last year. Now it's making sure we don't have to rebuild that with the people that are here, and teaching the new people."
When on the court together, Heckel and Arnold fed off each other's intensity and were a dynamic pair of defenders. The coaches have urged Heckel to become more consistent with her intensity on defense, whoever is on the court.
"I could have been a better defender last year, and I'm really stepping into that," Heckel said. "I've been told to get better at pressuring on defense. I do it sometimes ,but I don't do it all the time and I need to take pride in providing pressure for our team."
Arnold has already noticed the difference in her backcourt mate.
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"Kayleigh's starting to use her voice a little more, which is very exciting," Arnold said. "Just to have that role coming back; being more of an enforcer. She's growing on the defensive end, being more confident, finishing at the rim. She's definitely taking that step in the right direction."
With so many newcomers, including freshman center Olivia Vukosa, a long-time friend and teammate and now Heckel's roommate, the practices and pick-up games have been pretty fierce, Heckel said. She is not the only one fueled to get back to the Final Four and wipe away the most recent memory.
"It has been very high-intensity this summer," Heckel said. "We're actively trying to get better … obviously, the season didn't end the way we wanted it to."
