2021 recruit to make early arrival
Poffenbarger graduates high school, will join UConn this semester
The UConn women’s basketball team is adding a player into the mix much earlier than expected.
Class of 2021 recruit Saylor Poffenbarger, who signed with UConn in November, has finished high school and will be traveling to Storrs this weekend. She will be able to practice and eligible to play in games with the No. 4 Huskies following a medical quarantine.
The Frederick News-Post initially reported the news Friday morning before the school officially announced it later in the day.
“I know Saylor’s really excited. This is an unprecedented event for us for a lot of reasons, but this is an unprecedented year,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said in a statement. “Opportunities have presented themselves that weren’t available for the past. I’m excited for Saylor and her family that they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and I can’t wait to coach her in practice and have her as part of the team.”
Poffenbarger — a 6-foot-2 guard
out of Middletown, Maryland, who was the No. 30 recruit of her class — will be enrolled in 12 credits of UConn courses, all online, according to the NewsPost.
“I’m excited to be around people and have a schedule — a set schedule — and be able to compete and kind of go back to some normalcy,” Poffenbarger told the News-Post.
She will wear No. 4 for the Huskies.
According to the News-Post, Poffenbarger had positioned herself to graduate a semester early with no intention of leaving for Storrs this winter. But as the chances of playing her senior season at Middletown High became less likely, and the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility for all college athletes this year, Poffenbarger decided now was the time to start her next chapter.
With several COVID-19 metrics at an all-time high locally, the Frederick County Public School system suspended winter sport practices earlier this month and has delayed implementing its hybrid learning model.
Poffenbarger isn’t the only early enrollee on the women’s basketball scene this season. UCLA brought aboard Dominique Darius (ESPN’s No. 26 recruit) in December, and she has already played in two games for the shorthanded Bruins, ranked No. 8. KN’isha Godfrey and Madison Conner are two others who are joining ranked programs in No. 14 Mississippi State and No. 11 Arizona.
Poffenbarger still has to go through a medical quarantine before getting onto the court. Should she be able to quickly acclimate, she would provide the team with a versatile, gritty player that can shoot — a welcomed prospect for a Huskies squad that has struggled from beyond the arc this season.
Poffenbarger also has international playing experience, winning gold for USA Basketball at the 2019 FIBA Americas U16 Championship where she averaged 7.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists. She was a first team all-state player in 2018 and 2019, putting up 21.2 points, 12.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game her junior season.
“A kid like Saylor, we needed somebody that could play a lot of different positions and had a feel for the game that we really needed to get in here,” Auriemma said after Poffenbarger signed in November. “Getting those [three initial commits] and then adding Azzi [Fudd] just gives us a lot of the versatility that I like, a lot of the options that I like of putting players in different spots on the floor, and not being hamstrung by saying, ‘This kid can only play here, this kid can only play there, this kid can only do this.’”
The Huskies’ roster now includes seven freshmen and 12 players overall.
Poffenbarger’s fellow 2021 signees Fudd and Caroline Ducharme will be finishing the school year at their respective high schools, they told The Courant, while Amari DeBerry has not shared her plans as of now.
Another game postponement
The Big East announced another game postponement Friday afternoon: UConn will not longer play Providence on Jan. 26, as the Friars have extended their pause in play due to additional COVID-19 related issues. No makeup date has been announced.
After a host of recent postponements and cancellations over the past two weeks, UConn is currently slated to return to the court Tuesday against Butler.