PHOENIX — It’s been 21 years since the last time Diana Taurasi competed in a UConn women’s basketball jersey, but the future Hall of Famer’s presence is all over the Huskies’ trip to Phoenix for the 2026 Final Four.
As the team bus rolled through downtown, the Huskies realized their hotel is located on 7489 Taurasi Way — the street renamed in her honor after Taurasi broke the WNBA’s all-time scoring record with her 7,489th point in June 2017. UConn held its practice Wednesday afternoon at the Phoenix’s Mercury’s practice facility, where the hardwood is named the Diana Taurasi Court and bears a logo of her likeness wearing her jersey number 3.
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“I had dinner with Dee last night. In typical Dee fashion, she’s the story,” Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said with a smile. “In my mind, (she’s) the greatest basketball player to ever play college basketball, and maybe the greatest WNBA player of all time. So to be here, I know that means a lot to her. I know it means a lot to our players.”
Taurasi’s legend began at UConn, where she led the program to three consecutive national championships from 2002-04. She was a three-time All-American and the unanimous national player of the year in 2003, and she also earned Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and ’04. Taurasi ranks 10th all-time at UConn in career points with 2,156, and she is top five in career 3-pointers (318) and assists (648).
Taurasi was drafted No. 1 overall by the Phoenix Mercury in 2004 and cemented her status as an all-time great over 21 seasons with the franchise. She led the Mercury to three WNBA titles in 2007, ’09 and ’14, and she became one of two guards ever to win WNBA MVP when she earned the honor in 2009. Taurasi retired in 2024 as an 11-time WNBA All-Star, and she remains the only player in league history to score more than 10,000 points. She is also the winningest basketball player in Olympic history, helping team USA to six consecutive gold medals from 2004-24.
This weekend, the Huskies look to join Taurasi’s 2002 squad in UConn history as the seventh team to win an undefeated national championship. The mission begins Friday when they face 1-seed South Carolina at 7 p.m. in the Final Four.
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“Being here is amazing, and to have success here, it would be amazing,” UConn star Azzi Fudd said. “I think just being able to look up to her growing up, to watch her play, to learn from her, to see her pave the way and make all this possible now for us, it would be incredible.”
Huskies savored extra day of rest
UConn had a brutal travel schedule en route to the 2025 NCAA championship, flying cross-country from Spokane, Washington to Tampa, Florida just three days before playing UCLA in the Final Four. This season, as the No. 1 overall seed, the Huskies’s trip was much smoother.
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South Carolina coach Dawn Staley spearheaded a rule change after the 2023 tournament, which guarantees the top overall seed in the tournament an extra day of rest in between the Elite Eight and Final Four. The Huskies played their Elite Eight game against Notre Dame on Sunday, while the Gamecocks faced TCU on Monday night with the teams’ Final Four matchup set for Friday.
“It definitely helped to get in early, but we came ready to play,” Huskies star Sarah Strong said. “It doesn’t matter how many days we get, we just try and be ready.”
The team got to take Monday off after flying from the regional in Fort Worth, Texas to Phoenix, and junior guard KK Arnold said they spent the afternoon unwinding by the pool at the hotel.
“The sun was out, so it was something I’ve been asking for since winter started.” Arnold said with a grin. “It was very important just for getting our legs under us, getting prepared for games like this coming up … We’ve been going thing to thing to thing and not really relaxing, so I feel like this week we had an opportunity to just get our stuff done, handle business and then kind of relax and enjoy each others’ presences.”
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UConn women’s basketball, South Carolina face off for clash of dynasties in Final Four
Watching the Mullins buzzer-beater
Ashlynn Shade and Allie Ziebell were having dinner at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Fort Worth when freshman Braylon Mullins hit the miracle 3-pointer from 35 feet to send UConn men’s basketball to the Final Four with a 73-72 win over Duke on Sunday. There were no TVs in the building, so Shade pulled up the game on her phone once the Huskies started to mount their comeback from a 19-point deficit in the first half.
The Huskies beat Notre Dame to advance to the Elite Eight earlier that day, and most of the players were watching from the team hotel. They recorded themselves sprinting through the halls and down to the lobby, screaming in celebration after the shot swished cleanly through the net. For the sixth time, both the men and women were headed to the Final Four with a chance to bring home the third dual national championships in program history.
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“They got that turnover and Braylon goes up, and I like got out of my chair and just started raising my arms,” Shade said. “I was just so excited, because we’re with (the men’s team) so much, and I think that’s just such a great group of guys … It’s so special, because not many other programs can say that them and their men’s team get to play this high of a level and potentially win.”
UConn assistant coach Morgan Valley was on the women’s NCAA championship team that secured the first dual titles with the men in 2004. She watched the men’s game from a bar of a neighboring hotel with Huskies director of sports performance Andrea Hudy to avoid the chaos of the team’s lobby, but they were screaming just as loudly as the players when the Mullins shot fell.
“I remember my senior year when they won and we won, it was just amazing,” Valley said. “Just watching them, Hudy actually said in September, she told (men’s associate head coach) Kimani (Young), both teams were in the weight room and she was like, ‘There’s an aura about this. There’s some kind of special energy about this.’ We texted Kimani after the game, and we were like, Hudy was right.”
