Brady excited to join her ‘dream school’
UConn women's basketball freshman Isuneh “Ice” Brady has wanted to wear the red, white and blue for Team USA since she was 13 years old.
Six days after she turned 18 this month, Brady made her first Team USA roster for the 2022 FIBA U18 Americas Championship in Argentina. Two weeks later, on June 19 in Buenos Aires, she won her first gold medal, helping the U.S. to its 10th-straight gold in FIBA U18 championships.
Brady, a 6-foot-3 post player from San Diego, turns the page to another chapter of her basketball career Tuesday, joining her new UConn teammates on campus for the first time.
Over the course of her first Team USA experience and through her final years in high school, Brady said she's learned she is strong enough to grow through life's challenges. That was the case during her attempt to make the U.S. roster and with dealing with pressure associated with committing to UConn as a sophomore in high school.
As Brady starts summer workouts with UConn she knows she's ready to tackle whatever challenges arise.
“I've been preparing since I was a sophomore,” Brady told Hearst Connecticut Media over the phone from Argentina on Monday. “It's like, ‘OK, now it's finally going to happen.' I'm just excited to get out there.”
A GOLD-MEDAL DEBUT
Brady was 13 when she first tried out for the Team USA U17 team. As one of the younger players trying out and still fairly new to basketball — she first started at age 7 at a local YMCA — she wasn't overly disappointed she didn't make the cut. She tried out again a couple years later for the U16 team, but still failed to make the roster.
This summer, she told herself she would do everything she could to earn a roster spot — even if it meant missing the first few weeks of UConn's summer workout session.
Team USA head coach Joni Taylor (Texas A&M) warned her players as they began training camp in Colorado that they would need to work extremely hard, but not to be afraid because they were capable of doing hard things.
“During tryouts, because I was gonna do whatever it took to make the team, I just remember running up and down the court during scrimmages and being so tired, like thinking ‘I can't go anymore,' and then still being able to push through,” Brady said.
“You're just giving so much of yourself, so much
of your energy, your body, your mind. It took so much and that was just for the tryouts and then whatever you thought you just gave; you have to give double that during training camp and then whatever you thought you just gave (in camp) you have to give triple that to win a gold medal ... It's gonna hurt, it's not gonna be perfect all the time, but I can definitely say I learned that about myself, that I'm able to do hard things.”
The U.S. swept its three preliminary games in Argentina, defeating teams by an average of 60 points. In Brady's USA debut against Colombia on June 13, she led all players with 17 points with an 87.5 field goal percentage along with three rebounds, two assists and two steals in 20 minutes.
Team USA continued through the quarterfinals and semifinals, defeating both Mexico (77-41) and Brazil (84-40).
Ahead of Sunday night's championship against Canada, Taylor's words began to sink in. Not only was a gold medal on the line, but so was Team USA's streak of nine-straight gold-medal victories in the FIBA U18 Championship games.
“It definitely hit us after the Mexico game,” Brady said. “Then it was like, ‘OK, these teams are gonna be better and more challenging. They're not gonna be as easy as the first games.' And then there's that pressure that you don't want to think about how USA wins all the time because it's like, ‘Oh, USA wins all the time.' That's us. We cannot lose. No one wants to be the first USA team that lost, in what, 10 years.”
While the U.S. led for all of Sunday's championship, the Canadians made a lategame surge to get within four points heading into the fourth quarter. Team USA was quick to build back its lead to double-digits before winning the game with a five-point edge for the gold medal. Brady's game-high 15 rebounds tied the Team USA's all-time record set by Nneka Ogwumike in 2008.
UCLA signee Kiki Rice — a former UConn recruiting target — was named the tournament's MVP. Across Team USA's six games, Brady averaged 13 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists and a team-best 65.5 field goal percentage.
Brady called her dad once the team got back to its hotel around midnight in Argentina to tell him the good news. She couldn't talk for long though, because her teammates began celebrating early, blasting music and dancing in their hotel rooms until 3:30 Monday morning.
“(Coach DeLisha MiltonJones) was giving her little speech after we won the gold medal after the celebration and she was like, ‘You guys are part of the family now,'” Brady said of Milton-Jones, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a Team USA assistant coach and the current Old Dominion coach. “She kept saying how this is just an excellence. USA is excellence and that's a part of our basketball resume.
“That was just like, ‘Wow, that's really cool.' … It's just the more accolades you get, the more you realize you're a part of this culture, a part of this family, this excellence. It just makes you feel like your hard work is paying off.”
BECOMING A HUSKY
Brady was taking a redeye flight Monday night from Argentina to Hartford. While Team USA gave the players Monday off to explore Buenos Aires — including touring the Pink House, the offices of the Argentinian government — Brady won't get a break between winning gold and beginning workouts at UConn.
When she arrives in Storrs, it will be the first time the 2022-23 UConn women's basketball team will all be together on campus. The rest of the team started summer workouts on June 1. Brady said her UConn coaches and a few teammates reached out to congratulate her on the USA win. Team staff have helped her begin her summer courses virtually as well.
The San Diego native and McDonald's All-American has been dreaming about being a Husky since she watched Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck lead UConn to four straight national championship titles.
“Just seeing the culture and the winning mentality that they had, it was just something that I fell in love with and wanted to be a part of,” Brady said.
She didn't plan on committing early, but after talking with coach Geno Auriemma on the phone, in which he told her she had “a little Husky” in her, she decided to fly out to Connecticut and see the campus for herself. It didn't take long for her to know that that was where she wanted to be.
“Before going out to Connecticut my sophomore year, I didn't even have an offer,” she said. “Obviously it was like my dream school so I was really excited talking to him (Auriemma) but I don't even think he knew how much, I mean he probably had an idea but, I don't think he knew how much I wanted to go to his school. …
“It was a no-brainer for me, and it just felt right. Still to this day, I feel like it's where I'll be most successful and then obviously prepare me for the next level, not just for basketball but just for life.”
Committing early to the sport's most iconic program placed a lot of pressure on Brady, both from the outside world and from her own self expectations. The constant pressure made her confidence rock back and forth, forcing her to overthink too much on the court, she said.
She learned to combat the pressure and strengthen her mental health by controlling her breathing and focusing on positive self-talk during games.
“I was playing a game and I just remember feeling like all eyes were on me and a lot of pressure to have blank amount of points and blank amount of rebounds and this and that,” she said. “It became pretty stressful, and it was definitely a lot of pressure.
“But I was able to find a balance of figuring out what works for me, and it doesn't always look like having the most points. I was able to work through that and just give it my all no matter what the stats looked like at the end of the day.”
It's because of this selfgrowth that she's decided to major in psychology at UConn.
“I want to learn more about mental health and stuff like that, especially for African Americans and for athletes, young athletes,” she said. “After I committed my sophomore year, I felt a lot of pressure, and it was putting a lot of stress on my mental health and not really understanding that to play basketball, your mind also has to be right too.”
For this summer, however; she's just focused on learning as much as she can during offseason workouts.
“I just want to be a sponge, absorb as much as I can. Learn as much as I can,” she said. “Take it all in, the highs and lows, the good and bad and just give it my all.”