‘I’m looking to be an all-around player’
2021 commit DeBerry on why she selected UConn, how she’s trying to elevate her game
Amari DeBerry remembers tuning into a Baylor game when she was younger to watch one of her favorite players, Brittney Griner, before the Lady Bears’ opponent caught her eye.
That opponent happened to be preeminent women’s basketball powerhouse UConn.
DeBerry didn’t know much about the team or the program at the time, but as her basketball career began to take off in the coming years, something about the Huskies, from the sharp-shooting Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis to the utterly dominant Brenna Stewart, stuck with her.
Fast-forward nearly a decade, and DeBerry will have a chance to add her own name to UConn’s rich legacy in two years’ time. Thejunior from Williamsville, N.Y., verbally committed to UConn in November, becoming the second member of the 2021 recruiting class to announce her intention to play in Storrs.
Before announcing, DeBerry, No. 5 in her class and the No. 1 forward by ESPN’s HoopGurlz, took an unofficial visit to UConn and caught the Huskies’ exhibition game against Jefferson, where she spent time with the current team as well as former standouts Stewart and Mosqueda-Lewis. DeBerry was back on campus this past weekend for the Notre Dame game, along with No. 1 2020 recruit Paige Bueckers and a pair of 2021 targets.
“I think for UConn, it was
definitely seeing how the coaches and the players interact and how the players interact with each other,” DeBerry said. “They have alumni coming back. When you have so many people coming back to a college, that means something. … How close the players have told me that they are with the coaches, and that they can talk to them about a lot of stuff, [was] important.”
As UConn coach Geno Auriemma looks to make UConn “bad for basketball again,” as he halfjokingly, half-not said regarding his recruiting approach for his 2020 and 2021 classes, DeBerry figures to be a meaningful part of that quest. Beyond her extensive accomplishments at the high school level, DeBerry played for the 2019 U.S. under-16 team this summer that won gold in the FIBA Americas
Championship. The 6-foot-5 forward will also bring some muchneeded height to Storrs.
“Obviously, her size gives her an advantage,” said Tony Lee, DeBerry’s coach for her Philadelphia Belles Elite Youth Basketball League team. “I think having the right teammates around her allows her to do some of the things that she does very well. She has a very nice touch from the perimeter in terms of her jump shot, her foul shooting. She’s gotten better at running the floor, so being able to play with pace, and as she’s getting bigger, faster, stronger, it’s allowed her to finish around the basket more efficiently.”
Though UConn will undoubtedly look to take advantage of her size and agility in the paint, DeBerry doesn’t want to have to only rely on her inside game.
“I’m looking to be an all-around player,” said DeBerry, who says she tries to emulate the style of players such as A’ja Wilson, Stewart and
Kevin Durant. “I want to be able to, if I come into a situation where I’m outside of the paint or outside the three-point line, confidently get the job done.”
DeBerry says her recruitment took off around the seventh grade. By that time she was already over 6 feet and playing with and against17and 18-year-olds. UConn’s coaching staff first saw her play, DeBerry’s mom told her recently, the summer before eighth grade.
Even before she decided on UConn, DeBerry had crossed paths with several Huskies, including some of her future teammates. DeBerry got to know fellow 2021 UConn commit Saylor Poffenbarger, as well as current UConn target Azzi Fudd, through the Blue Star 30 program before competing with the former on Team USA this summer. Through Fudd, DeBerry became friends with Bueckers, whom she will spend three years with in Storrs. At a Blue Star camp last fall, DeBerry spent some time with Stewart, whois also an alumna of the Belles program. She has kept in touch with the WNBAMVPever since.
“She’s been a good role model for her,” Lee said. “It’s another kid her same size, it’s a kid who has similar skill sets, and it’s somebody who has at least ventured along the path or the journey that Amari is on. How Amari develops along that journey or similar path that Breanna took is up to Amari, but it is some someone that she looks up to and turns to for advice.”
Those UConn connections didn’t heavily factor into her college decision, DeBerry says, but being relatively close to her tight-knit family did. DeBerry is incredibly close with her mother, whom she says has never missed one of her games, as well as her sister Naomi, who is currently studying to become a nurse in Philadelphia. Naomi even came up Connecticut to accompany Amari on her visit to UConn in November. DeBerry still has two years before she steps foot for good in Storrs. Once she does, with her support system not too far, and with the tutelage of Auriemma and Co., the real work will begin.
“It’s still the gold standard of women’s basketball,” Lee said of UConn. “I think with some of the past development and positive showings that they’ve had — with kids like [Stewart] and Stefanie Dolson, a couple of other bigs they’ve had like Napheesa Collier — they came out ready to play, understanding what it takes to be the best and it opens up doors for them.
“Whether that’s professionally or overseas or any type of career that [DeBerry] is going to wind up doing, I think UConn will really help her understand that highest level, what that work ethic is like, that daily, achievable level of performance, and what it takes to really hone that in.”