NEW YORK — Most of the time, it’s easy to forget that Sarah Strong is only a freshman. Starting on a roster that includes 11 former McDonald’s All-Americans, the rookie phenom has often looked like the best player on the floor for the UConn women’s basketball team over the first eight games of her college career.
But when redshirt senior Paige Bueckers jokingly nicknamed Strong “Go Go Gadget” after the No. 2 Huskies routed No. 22 Louisville on Saturday, the 18-year-old’s youth showed. Coach Geno Auriemma tried to explain the 1980s cartoon detective Inspector Gadget, who famously solved cases with the help of robotic arms that emerged from his hat. The team’s director of communications then showed Strong a picture, and the freshman was less than pleased by the comparison.
“This generation of kids, man,” the 23-year-old Bueckers quipped with a grin after Strong admitted she didn’t understand the reference.
“Kids? I’m an adult, thank you,” the freshman shot back. A smirking Auriemma chimed in a few moments later.
“She just saw a picture of Go Go Gadget,” he told Bueckers. “She’s not happy with you right now.”
Though Strong may disagree, Bueckers’s nickname for her is an apt one. At 6-foot-2, the freshman leads the Huskies on the boards with 7.6 rebounds per game on top of her 16.3 points, and she is also averaging a team-high 2.5 steals and 1.5 blocks.
The freshman put up another veteran stat line in the Huskies’ 85-52 win over the Cardinals in the Women’s Champions Classic on Saturday night. Strong never flinched under the bright lights at Barclays Center, beginning her scoring with a quick 3-pointer in the first quarter. She shot a team-best 80% from the field including 3-for-5 from beyond the arc for 21 points — her third time scoring 20-plus in the last five games. Strong also added eight rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal in just 26 minutes on the floor.
“Her instincts, she doesn’t think much when she plays. She just reacts, and you can tell that she’s been watching basketball and been around basketball and it’s been a huge part of her life,” Bueckers said. “Sarah is more like a guard than any other post players that I’ve played with. She can play inside, outside, on the perimeter. She handles the ball very well, she passes very well. There’s not a lot of things that Sarah can’t do, so it’s been awesome to continue to build that chemistry and see her play at this level, on this stage.”
Auriemma has lauded Strong as UConn’s next superstar since she arrived on campus, and the shy freshman has played at a level well beyond her years to start 2024. The longtime Huskies coach compares her instant impact to that of Breanna Stewart’s when she joined his roster as the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2012. Stewart was a more prolific shot-blocker than Strong, while Strong has a bigger impact as a facilitator, but the four-time NCAA champion logged remarkably similar stats to Strong’s through her first eight games at UConn: She averaged 15.1 points and 6.5 rebounds on 58% shooting from the field with a double-double and three 20-point games over an 8-0 start in 2012-13.
“The best teams we’ve ever had at Connecticut, they were three-pronged,” Auriemma said. “Whether you go back to Kara Wolters, Rebecca Lobo and Nykesha Sales … or Stewie, (Morgan) Tuck and Moriah (Jefferson) … When you can come at people with those three things, then you have a chance to win every single game you play, and we’re fortunate that we have something like that (this year). We won’t know until later on whether it’s the equivalent of that, but we’ve got something like that going for us right now.”
But Auriemma is also far from satisfied with Strong’s performances, holding the freshman to a sky-high standard that he believes her talent level demands. In the final seconds of the first half against Louisville, Strong held the ball at the top of the arc and turned to Auriemma looking for a play call, but he didn’t provide one. Instead he repeatedly told her — with increasing volume — to take her defender 1-on-1 to the basket.
Rather than drive, Strong launched a 3-pointer that ricocheted off the back of the rim and out of bounds. Auriemma immediately turned to assistant coach Jamelle Elliott on the bench with hands thrown in the air, then stalked along the Huskies’ sideline ranting that Strong was “the best goddamn player on the floor, and she’s asking me what the (expletive) to do with the ball.”
“There’s usually a learning curve (for freshmen), and I’m sure there will be things that will pop up over the next month,” Auriemma said. “I remember Stewie had a November and kind of mid-December blowout where she was just the best player in the country, until she wasn’t, because things happen when you’re a freshman. Sarah has a really good outlook on the game. She seems to know what we need at what moment … Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot that you don’t see every day in practice. Jamelle had a couple gray hairs, but she has a couple more since Sarah got here.”
