Soft-spoken Edwards lets play make statement
UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma remembers being wowed by Aaliyah Edwards’ competitiveness and intensity from the first possession of basketball he saw her play on the recruiting trail.
Upon her arrival to UConn this summer, “There were definitely moments in practice early on against the guys,” junior Christyn Williams says, “where we’d be like, ‘Dang, she just moved them out the way.’ ”
INSIDE
When Huskies fans first watched Edwards in her collegiate debut versus UMass Lowell, they saw a player who was by far the most physical player on the floor, so much so that she picked up two offensive fouls in 12 minutes of play.
You tend to remember the first time you saw Aaliyah Edwards play. She’ll make sure you don’t forget her anytime soon either.
Since joining the program the 6-foot-3 forward from Kingston, Ontario, who was just named the Big East Sixth Woman of the Year, has provided a competitive fire that the Huskies haven’t had in years.
Despite coming off the bench,
Edwards is fourth on the team in scoring (10.7 points per game) and second in rebounding (5.4 boards per game, while owning the top field goal percentage in the conference (70.4 percent).
If the secret’s not out to the rest of the basketball world, it will be soon. Edwards is playing her best basketball as the top-ranked Huskies enter the postseason, which UConn begins Saturday in the Big East tournament quarterfinals against St. John’s.
But behind Edwards’ old-school style of play, behind her distinctive yellow-and-purple braids she’s long sported to honor her hero Kobe Bryant, is a soft-spoken 18-year-old introvert who is driven by the values her brother, Jermaine, imparted on her before he passed away in 2017. Chief among them: Once you commit to something, you follow through.
The Kobe Bryant influence
Growing up, Aaliyah was similar to how she isn ow, her mother Jackie says: an introvert, an animal lover. Someone who was always at tuned to others’ feelings and looked out for the underdog. In kindergarten, Jackie recalled, Aaliyah befriended the other tall girl in her class because she didn’t want her to get teased.
Though she tried individual sports and excelled at track, teamsports were where she thrived. She was first introduced to basketball through her older brothers, Jahmal and Jermaine. Jackie washer first competitive coach, but no one was a greater influence on her than Jermaine, 14 years her elder.
Jermaine and Aaliyah spent countless hours in the gym working out or breaking down film. He taught her less about putting the ball in the hoop, as Jackie put it, and more about the way you go about it.
The two shared enormous admiration not only for Bryant’s passion, but also his mindset and work ethic. It was the idea that once you invest in something, you have the responsibility to see that through. Aaliyah saw a lot of Bryant in her brother, and he was the perfect person to help instill those values in her.
“He would be my Kobe in away ,” she said.
Aaliyah brought that unbreakable level of commitment to every phase of her life. She once suffered a bad groin injury during a game, lobbied someone to wrap her up so she could finish. Four weeks later she finished third in a 5K roadrace.
When Aaliyah steps onto the court, she does so with the understanding she had with Jermaine; that she must give it her all on every possession, doing things both big and small.
“If there’s a loose ball, I’m going to run after it,” Aaliyah said. “If I’m playing defense, I want to lock up my player. Offensively if I have an advantage one on one in the post, I want to take that advantage to be successful. I think it’s just me being passionate about basketball andjust loving the competitiveness of the game.”
“She just plays with a level of respect for the game because that is how her brother taught her,” Jackie said. “When you commit to something, it means that you give it your best. And when you walk away, you know that you’ve given it your best, and if you know you didn’t, go back and give it some more.”
The Edwards family unexpectedly lost Jermaine four years ago last month. He was 27 and the family has chosen not to disclose his cause of death. He never got to see some of her biggest moments — making the senior Canadian national team, graduating high school, playing at UConn — but his imprint is all over Aaliyah’s success.
“Living through him and what he taught me has gotten me to this point,” Aaliyah said.
He’s still present in her approach to life, her approach to the game. She works hard, doesn’t take anything for granted and follows through on her commitments.
One time after Jermaine’s death, Aaliyah turned to her mom and reminded them what the Edwards family does.
“She said, ‘You know mom, you’ve got to finish being a mom,’ ” Jackie recalled. “We finish what we start. And so as a family, we’re going to finish what we started.
“We started as a family, we’re going to finish.”
Staying true to herself
Through the devastating loss of Jermaine, Aaliyah managed to remain true to herself, even if that person is the complete opposite of who she on the court.
Williams describes her as “very soft spoken, a very nice girl,” while Aaliyah uses the word “chill.” The players like to joke that Aaliyah, a vegetarian, is a “strong body off vegetables,” using vegetable emojis whenever they post about her on social media. Auriemma has found her “easygoing, more introverted, a thinker.”
“When she gets out on the floor,” he added, “she’s none of those things. Which is good. It is exactly what allows her to be as good as she is.”
Edwards has been compared to UConn greats Ashja Jones and Tamika Williams, with hints of Jamelle Elliott. Jones, currently an assistant coach with the Washington Mystics, has already been impressed with Aaliyah’s game — especially her physicality as a freshman.
“Shoot, that’s rare on the pro level,” Jones said. “She’s kind of bringing back that old-school grind.”
Rarely one to rave about freshmen, Auriemma said last month that Edwards (along with fellow freshman Nika Muhl) “play Connecticut-basketball hard.” It was perhaps the best compliment he could give a player, and the best one Edwards could hear about herself.
“They’re just like tenacious in everything that they do,” Edwards. “I just look back at that and see my myself as those great players, and in a couple years, that’s how I want my career to be.”
She has a long way to go before joining those ranks. But if history is any precedent, she won’t stop until she sees that through.