The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Top prospect Williams commits
Landing program-changing players never gets old for UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma.
Auriemma admits that the joy he felt in the early 1990s when Rebecca Lobo and Pam Webber formed the recruiting class that would serve as the foundation for the program’s first national championship team was similar to that moment a couple of days ago when Christyn Williams phoned Auriemma to tell him “I guess you guys are stuck with me for the next four years.”
Williams made it official at a signing ceremony at Central Arkansas Christian School in North Little Rock, Ark., on Friday.
Although Auriemma already knew she was planning to be a Husky, he tuned into a live stream of the event and couldn’t help but chuckle.
“She had a Husky dog at her thing today; she got her classmates to wear UConn stuff,” the Hall of Fame coach said with a laugh. “This kid is pretty sharp, she has a lot on the ball and everybody loves her because she has that kind of personality. She’s just a fun kid to be around.”
Since Tamika Williams headlined perhaps the best recruiting class in women’s college basketball history in 1998, Christyn Williams is the 11th player ranked No. 1 in her respective class to sign with the Huskies. The list doesn’t even include iconic UConn players like Rebecca Lobo, Nykesha Sales, Shea Ralph or Sue Bird.
“There was a feeling in me that went, ‘That was pretty cool,’ ” Auriemma said in response to that call from Williams. “When you’ve been doing this for so long, you hope you never get to the point where you go, ‘That was great, call my people, they’ll call your people and we’ll put this together, I’ll talk to you later.’ You hope that you’ll never get that nonchalant about it. Believe me, I wasn’t, I was driving along thinking, ‘That’s pretty good because we really need this.’ ”
Williams said the quest to be legendary — to follow in the footsteps of players like Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore, who ventured far from home to become the faces of the UConn program — drew her to the Huskies. She also mentioned that sophomore guard Crystal Dangerfield, a teammate of Williams this summer on the U.S. U19 team, is the UConn player she is most eager to play with. The feeling is most certainly mutual.
“She’s fun, she doesn’t like to be the center of attention but she is the center of attention,” Dangerfield said. “She’s always cracking jokes, she’s a light-hearted person and fun to be
around. I think she can do a little bit of everything, she gets to the gym and is a very aggressive player, she can finish with contact, she has a great handle and a great shot.
“I got a good sense (Williams would sign with the Huskies). I felt like she liked UConn the most. I thought she would benefit if she came here because great guards play here and she wants to be great.”
No player on the current UConn roster knows Williams better than freshman Lexi Gordon, her former AAU teammate and the
person she was with during her first trip to campus.
“When I committed she said maybe we could be future Huskies together and I knew in the back of her mind that she wanted to come here,” Gordon said. “I’m glad she went through the process, took her time and decided this was the place for her.
“She loves basketball so much and it translates to the court. She’s always in a gym, she’s always talking about how she’s always going to the gym.”
Williams averaged double-doubles as a freshman and sophomore. As a junior she averaged 26.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game.
She was the only player with remaining high school eligibility on the silver medal-winning U.S. team at the FIBA U19 World Cup. She averaged 3.2 points and 1.7 rebounds in 8.3 minutes per game. UConn’s Megan Walker, the No. 1 player in last year’s recruiting class who also committed to UConn on Nov. 10, was also a member of that team.
UConn had a commitment from the No. 2-rated player in the class, but 6-foot-5 Texas native Charli Collier decommitted and signed with Texas.
The Huskies are in the running to land No. 5-rated prospect Olivia NelsonOdoda, a 6-4 post out of Winder-Barrow High School in Winder, Ga.
CAMARA OUT
Sophomore forward Batouly Camara continues to make progress from her knee injury. Auriemma said Camara will travel with the team to Ohio but won’t play in Sunday’s season opener against Stanford due to sprain and a bone bruise.
Auriemma said there’s a chance Camara could return to practice next week, but her status for the Nov. 17 home opener against California is yet to be determined.