Ignition switch
UConn’s Griffin provided spark in tournament win vs. Baylor
STORRS — UConn women’s basketball’s Aubrey Griffin walked toward the bench to check out with just under a minute left in the third quarter when the sold-out crowd at Gampel Pavilion erupted.
“Aub-rey! Aub-rey! Aub-rey!” yelled the 4,000-plus students in the student section across the court.
Each and every UConn player on the bench stood up and hugged Griffin individually as she walked down the bench. Even coach Geno Auriemma gave her a hug and a huge grin.
“It was a surreal moment, just being out there, and being able to impact the game like that, and I’m glad that I was able to help my teammates,” Griffin said.
The redshirt junior scored just four points in Monday’s NCAA Tournament second-round win over Baylor, but she contributed so much more
than what could ever be recorded on a stat sheet.
She was UConn’s energy. Its spark at both ends of the floor. She was everywhere all at once. And she did it all while wearing a protective wrap on her back on the bench and sneaking in time on the stationary bike in the team’s tunnel every rest she got.
As Auriemma puts it, Griffin grew up Monday. She led like an upperclassman should. She believed in herself for the first time in a long time and put the team on her back.
After missing all of last season due to back surgery, Griffin showed she’s finally herself.
“I think today, the biggest lesson today (for Griffin) was, ‘I don’t need to be anything more than what I was tonight. I don’t have to go out there and score every time I touch the ball, try to prove that I’m good enough,’” Aureimma said. “There were a bunch of rebounds she got today where in the past she would’ve turned around and forced something up there to try to prove a point, and she kicked them out a bunch of times. She’s just growing as a player and a person, and it’s — if anybody has ever had back issues … it’s not easy being in her situation. She’s growing up. She’s growing up right in front of our eyes.”
Griffin received a dis
cectomy in January 2021 after initially injuring her back her sophomore year. The pain had gotten so bad she could hardly walk. The surgery, however; ended her true junior season before she even got a chance to play.
She spent all winter, spring and summer rehabbing to be able to be 100% cleared come the fall’s preseason.
The hard work in her rehab paid off. She was put in the starting lineup during the third game of the year and held the spot throughout the whole season.
Against Princeton on Dec. 8, she was a perfect 11 of 11 from the floor and scored a career-high 29 points. She recorded four of her seven career double-doubles between December and January.
But Griffin continued to battle her biggest hurdle: self-confidence.
When shots weren’t falling, she’d get down on herself and start making mistakes. She went 1 of 12 against Notre Dame in December (the game before the Princeton game) and 0 of 4 against St. John’s in February.
Even when she was in high school, Griffin struggled to believe in herself. Her coach would constantly have to pull her aside and tell her positive affirmations about herself to keep her locked in during games.
Auriemma believes her struggle with confidence comes from the pressures of growing up in an athletically dominant family — especially one where basketball always took center stage.
Griffin’s dad, Adrian, played basketball at Seton Hall and in the NBA. He’s now an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors. Her mom, Audrey, ran track at Seton Hall. Her brother, Alan, played basketball collegiately and now professionally. And her other brother, AJ, played the sport at Duke and is currently playing for the Atlanta Hawks.
“When you have high expectations, you come from a family of high achievers, especially in the basketball world, I think you put a lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself sometimes,” Auriemma said. “You just want to be so good, so bad, that when it doesn’t quite go your way, you really get, you know, into yourself and start being more critical of yourself than you need to be.
“And that’s why pretty much during her career Aubrey has been when it’s going is good, there is nobody better. When it’s not going good, there is nobody worse, because she beats herself up so much when it’s not going good.”
Slowly but surely, Griffin has strengthened her confidence this season. With each positive game, she became more and more sure of herself.
But then her back took a turn for the worse.
She sat out the second half of UConn’s Big East Tournament championship win over Villanova after she began to suffer back spasms during the first half.
The pain continued throughout UConn’s nearly two weeks off before starting the NCAA Tournament. During that time, she got in extra rehab and treatment, but the spasms continued. She’d come in an hour before each practice just to work on rehab. Back home after practice, she’d continue to work on her back, doing rehab exercises each night before bed.
Auriemma said after the win over Villanova on March 6, Griffin didn’t fully return to practice until 10 days later.
In an attempt to lessen her workload, Griffin was replaced in the starting lineup by Azzi Fudd to start the NCAA Tournament on Saturday. She played about six and a half minutes and scored four points and had one rebound in UConn’s win over Vermont.
But with Baylor not backing down during the first half of Monday’s second round, Auriemma had no choice but to bring
in Griffin off the bench.
“I knew at some point I would get to this chance,” Griffin said. “We were just taking precaution but I’m glad we did because I feel great today.”
Griffin did the full pregame warm-up with the team Monday and spent extra time stretching and loosening up her back while the others were doing their normal routine. She started the game on the bench, wearing a back wrap that provided heat and massaged her back to keep it loose and warm.
She played 45 seconds in the first quarter and a little over six minutes in the second. By halftime, she had a team-high four rebounds.
“I just wanted to do anything to help my team and just bring the energy, get the rebounds and help my team get second chances,” Griffin said. “Just go in there and have an impact.”
Each time Auriemma subbed her out, she’d immediately put on the back wrap and rush over to the team’s stationary bike in the tunnel to get in as many peddles as she could to keep her back loose.
“I felt (the pain), but like I was just playing in the moment and the adrenaline kicked in and I wasn’t thinking about it,” Griffin said. “And I was just keeping it warm and doing what the doctors told me to do and it felt good. It felt good, doing that because when I’m on the bike, I can just keep it warm and stay ready to go back in.”
Added Auriemma: “She would just sprint off the bike and run out there.
Some of the rebounds were just absolutely classic. I mean, that’s just — some of it God-given, and some is just Aubrey just didn’t want to lose tonight.”
In the third quarter, with the game tied at 5:15 mark, Griffin came alive.
One minute she was blocking Baylor on defense then, on the other side, she was cleaning up UConn’s misses and grabbing offensive rebound after offensive rebound to keep UConn’s offense alive.
“She came out with a chip on her shoulder, jumping up in the air, getting inside, just banging around,” Dorka Juhász said. “She’s been awesome. We’re very, very proud of her. Without her, I don’t know if we would have had that momentum change that we needed. … She did a tremendous job. She’s like a guard, a post player. She’s everything, whatever we need. She came in just being all over the place. She’s just so special.”
At 2:19 in the third, she stole the ball from Baylor, passed it to Nika Mühl at halfcourt who immediately passed the ball back to her to make a layup in the paint.
Her impact was felt even on the opposite end of the court from the one person trying to coach against her.
“Aubrey Griffin came in and to me was the difference maker for them,” Baylor head coach Nicki Collen said after the game. “And it just goes to show you it’s not always about who scores all the points, but the extra possessions she created, the energy she created in transition, the way she was flying around like she just changed the energy for this whole team.”
Amid talking about how the Bears’ season is now over, Collen brought up Griffin in her postgame press conference multiple times unprompted by questions from the media.
“I really thought the tide changed because of Aubrey Griffin,” Collen said. “Her energy at both ends, like we would get a miss and she looked like Superman flying in from the perimeter, getting them (UConn) extra opportunities.”
Griffin not once made the game about her. She’d grab a rebound and immediately look and pass to an open teammate. She ended the game with three assists — the fifth time this season she’s dished out three or more.
“Aubrey was just incredible,” Mühl said. “…She comes in and plays like that for the last time here at Gampel this year, that just speaks of how big of a person she is first and how unselfish she is for our team. I mean, if I could say who was MVP of that game, it was definitely Aubrey.”
And the end of the game Monday, the Huskies ran over to the student section to clap their hands then walked across the court to the locker room.
Mühl sped up to catch up to Griffin and put her arm around her. The two walked in the embrace for a few moments before getting pulled in directions.
While Griffin will continue to manage her back throughout the tournament, she proved Monday that the pain means nothing compared to helping her team.
“She really left her heart and everything on the floor,” Aaliyah Edwards said.
Added Auriemma: “I’m proud of her, you know because she’s trying to make up for missing a whole year.”