Leaps and bounds
Freshman Patterson ready to show her game is more than dunking
STORRS — There will probably come a time over the next four years when UConn women’s basketball freshman Ayanna Patterson dunks in a game and sure, that will be a hoot. XL Center and Gampel Pavilion crowds would eat it up. Patterson herself would enjoy the moment.
“Hopefully down the road somewhere, I can get one here,” she said last week, when all the Huskies,
newcomers and veterans and healthy players and injured ones, spread out in the Werth Champions Center to meet the media and discuss basketball goals.
One of Patterson’s is to show that she is more than what she is known for. Yes, she can stuff the ball through the hoop. Quite easily, in fact. Off two feet, even. Videos from workouts go viral, a buzz develops and voila, the summation in some circles becomes as follows: UConn has that kid who can dunk.
“I want to show that I have the skill to go with that athleticism, and I’m going to continue to build on that skill,” said Patterson, a 6-foot-2 forward who is suited to the fluid, position-less basketball Geno Auriemma prefers. “I also want to show I’m a really good defensive player, being able to block shots and get rebounds. … I’ll do a little bit of everything everywhere. I’m still trying to figure out where my strength will be.”
A dunk counts for the same two points as a layup or pull-up, of course, but one’s ability to actually throw one down, particularly in the women’s game, does showcase potential to impact a game in numerous ways.
Patterson’s ceiling, like her vertical leap, is high. She was the consensus No. 4 overall recruit in the high school Class of 2022, and the top-rated wing. She averaged 25.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocks a senior at Homestead High in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and was named a McDonald’s All American and Indiana Miss Basketball.
Patterson’s high school rival and friend, Ashlynn Shade, a junior guard and UConn commit from Noblesville High, won Indiana’s other major award, Gatorade Player of the Year.
Noblesville defeated Homestead in a Class 4A
regional championship game. Days later, Patterson attended Noblesville’s state semifinal game, sitting with Noblesville fans and cheering.
“Everybody was like, ‘Why are you over here?’ ” Patterson said. “I was like, ‘I’m supporting my new teammate.’ ”
Noblesville went on to win the 4A state championship.
Patterson led Homestead to a 23-2 record as a senior, accomplishing everything she did without dunking, the opportunity for which seldom presented itself. One time though, in a December game, she decided to dunk while alone on a break. She jumped a little late, missed, and the ball caromed far off the rim and backboard. Patterson was then issued a technical foul for hanging on the rim.
“The ref actually was like, ‘I just wanted to T you up. I had never T’d a girl up before,’ ” Patterson said. “I was like, ‘Hey, OK, it’s a new thing for (everybody),’ because that was my first tech and first attempt at a dunk in a game.’ ”
This actually became a cool moment for Patterson. The student section that had been heckling her for most of that game gave her an ovation, appreciating her athletic gifts. Pictures and video of the dunk attempt circulated, with one YouTube post captioned “She’s so bouncy.”
Lou Lopez Senechal, a newcomer to UConn this season after graduating from Fairfield, learned
that recently.
“I remember the first day, I was just shooting around with her,” Lopez Senechal said. “After she was done shooting, she would just grab the ball and dunk it. I stand there like, ‘Yeah, I wish I could do that.’ ”
Can you touch the rim? “Maybe on a good day,” Lopez Senechal said, sheepishly.
Patterson’s jumping ability is loud.
So is some of what is sometimes directed to her. Because she plays as if she’s on springs and wears her hair in an Afro, she has been the target of some ugly taunting.
“I’m a girl that outlies other female athletes,” Patterson said. “A lot of female athletes aren’t able to dunk. Or they don’t have the same body, the same build, as me. So being called a boy or, hearing ‘You don’t do things girls do,’ you have to be able to know who you are, within yourself. You’re going to get those nasty, rude comments. You’re going to get racist comments. Playing at a predominantly white high school, it came with a lot of that. You have student sections that have been mean. You get a little bit from anyone.”
Patterson didn’t want to repeat the worst things she’s heard over the years.
“It’s a lot,” she said. “I can’t even …”
Patterson has a tattoo on her left forearm, the text of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
With the ground Patterson covers and the way she moves, she should be able to make an immediate difference on defense and in transition even while working toward better coordinating the way she’ll operate with the ball and in half-court sets.
Patterson has made a good impression with teammates. She’s quiet. Huge smile. Seems to be enjoying the first steps of a college process that will intensify in October when practice begins, and on Nov. 10 when UConn opens the 2022-23 season against Northeastern.
“Sometimes from the outside she’s more of a shy person, unless you get to know her,” Lopez Senechal said. “She’s very sweet. She’s very easy to talk to. She’s
funny, too.”
Years now into an increasingly high-profile situation, Patterson is analytical about where she’s been and where she’s going. Her goal beyond a playing career is to return to Fort Wayne and open an athletic facility that features onsite resources for academics and mental health, essentially onestop self-improvement for players trying to juggle the demands that she has.
“It’s a lot at a young age,” said Patterson, who has worked with a sports psychologist. “You have a lot of media pressure, and that continues to come. Having athletes be able to talk to someone, and know that it’s OK to talk to someone, is great. A lot of kids won’t. Know it’s OK is perfectly fine.
“People say there’s no pressure in basketball. Yeah, there is, when you have to go out there and perform in front of thousands of people and then you’ve got the cameras, media.”
And then college coaches read that content, see that footage, and recruiting picks up.
“And that’s not without pressure,” Patterson said. “In AAU, you have college coaches on the sideline, evaluating your game, writing things down. You don’t want to mess up. As a kid, that’s a lot.”
Patterson feels like she has managed it all quite well. The next step is to succeed in gyms where national championship banners hang, where Hall of Fame players are celebrated.
“It’s everything I expected and more,” Patterson said of her UConn experience so far. “I knew it was going to be intense. I knew it was going to be hard. But I’m working hard every day.”
Each step gets a little more difficult. Patterson, like every UConn player, is practicing with and against some of the best players in the nation.
“I’ve learned a little bit about the style I’ll have to play here,” she said. “I’ll have to get a little more physical. I’ll take more hits out here. In high school, I wasn’t so used to everyone being my size. So, taking those hits down on the block and then the difficulty in getting down into the lane. Being able to adjust to that is important.”