RIGHT TIME TO SHINE FOR SHADE
Freshman peaking at perfect moment for Uconn in NCAA Tournament
STORRS — Noblesville, Indiana, is basketball country, smack dab in the middle of a candystriped state that lives and dies by the Indiana Hoosiers every March. Ashlynn Shade was raised on the NCAA Tournament, spending countless hours imagining herself on the other side of the television screens that her family congregated around each year.
Matt Shade thought he knew what to expect when he took his seat behind the Uconn women’s basketball bench to watch his daughter in Monday’s secondround NCAA Tournament matchup with Syracuse. But the sold-out crowd at Gampel Pavilion exceeded everything he imagined from “The Basketball Capital of the World” as the Huskies advanced to the Sweet 16 with a 72-64 win.
“This place is crazy … it’s like on steroids,” Matt said. “I mean, this is basketball at the highest level. March Madness is such a big part of our whole lives, so just to see your daughter out there and to see them perform and then move on, it’s like, surreal … It’s definitely different watching now though. A lot more stressful.”
Ashlynn, too, exceeded every expectation in her March Madness debut. The freshman put up a career-high 26 points plus six rebounds and two steals in Uconn’s first round win over No. 14 seed Jackson State, then doubled down with 19 points, four rebounds and two steals against the Orange on Monday. She averaged 54.8% shooting from the field and 50% from 3-point range across the two games, playing 79 of a possible 80 minutes.
As unreal as it often feels in the moment, none of it surprises Matt.
“All the work that’s done behind the scenes in the gym, I’ve seen. I’ve seen the practices, the AAU games. She’s prepared, and this is the stage,” he said. “This is why she came to Uconn.”
A roller coaster rookie season
Matt started envisioning Ashlynn in a Uconn jersey when she was in fourth grade, nearly a decade before she would accept a scholarship offer from Geno Auriemma as the No. 15 prospect in the class of 2023. Even at 9 years old, Matt saw the foundations of an elite athlete: Handeye coordination, balance, court vision. He immediately thought that Uconn, then in the midst of its record-shattering 111-game win streak, could be the perfect
program someday for his young daughter.
“I kind of knew she was going to Uconn, and I’ve watched Geno forever,” Matt said. “She’s skilled, she’s coachable, and she’s a team player. That’s what Uconn basketball is, so it made total sense … But until you’re in that practice gym and live through it, it’s different.”
Ashlynn’s first year in Storrs hasn’t gone the way Matt, or anyone, expected from the very first game of the year. The whole Shade family — Matt, Ashlynn’s mom Kasey and twin brother Jack — all flew down to Raleigh to watch Uconn’s season opener against NC State. The Huskies lost 92-81 to the then-unranked Wolfpack, and Ashlynn never even took her warmups off. There were tears afterward, Matt said, and it wouldn’t be the last time.
Minutes quickly became the least of Ashlynn’s concerns though as season-ending injuries decimated Uconn’s roster. She was thrust into her first career start just two weeks after spending the whole game on the bench in North Carolina and became a fixture in the lineup alongside fellow freshman KK Arnold after starting against Ball State on Dec. 6.
“We knew that this might be a preparation year, but when she didn’t get in at all, we were like oh no. Like, this is gonna be a rough one,” Matt said, now with a rueful smile. “There was a lot of tears, but then opportunity arose, and she never quit. Ashlynn never quits. She grinds and has grit, so she’s always going to be ready, but that definitely was a defining moment.”
Auriemma’s infamously brash style also required an adjustment period for Ashlynn, a people-pleaser to her core. She was desperate to make a good impression on the legendary Huskies coach, and she internalized every critique he hollered at her during practice. Auriemma often lamented earlier in the year that Shade cared too much about what he thought.
“I just put too much pressure on myself, and you can’t put pressure on yourself and his pressure on yourself or you’re going to explode,” Shade said. “He’s not going to change. He even told me, ‘I’ve probably already yelled at you five times so just expect that. It’s going to happen and there’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t even worry about it.’
“I had to retrain my mind so when I hear those things I don’t get negative on myself and redirect that into more of a positive thing mentally for me.”
Ashlynn’s transition into the starting lineup on the court was overwhelmingly smooth. She was named Big East Freshman of the Week five times, scoring at least 12 points in nine of the Huskies’ first 10 conference games. But she hit a point in the season Auriemma said most freshman run into, when “things are just moving too fast.”
Her production remained solid, but Ashlynn’s efficiency suffered. She hit a 3-point shooting slump after going 2-for-11 against No. 1 South Carolina, and every clank off the rim also put another dent in her already fragile confidence.
“We were talking with the strength and conditioning coaches, and we got to a point where we said, she has no legs. She’s played so many minutes, and totally unanticipated,” Auriemma said. “You could see like, every shot was short. I told her, you have to get out of the gym and let the ball feel good again. The ball was feeling heavy and sluggish. And at some point, she got her second wind.”
‘Ashlynn in March is different’
Matt describes practice as “a lifestyle” for his daughter, and rest was a foreign concept to the freshman when she arrived in Storrs. Old habits die hard — Ashlynn confessed to sneaking into the gym on designated off days entering the postseason — but she felt herself reset during the week of recovery after the Big East Tournament.
Actually reestablishing her confidence took little conscious effort from Ashlynn. It was more like falling back into flow, one that she locks into more and more easily now with 31 starts behind her.
“It just kind of clicks. You just find yourself again in games like those when you see your normal shots that you normally make go in,” Ashlynn said. “It definitely helped having that time after Big East to kind of recuperate and recenter yourself and go back to who you are. That’s what I’ve learned, is you can get lost in long seasons like this. It’s hard, so to be able to come back to that, and be here and present with my team in the moment feeling normal and confident again, it feels really good.”
It’s those team-driven moments that Ashlynn thrives in, like the 3-pointer drained at the end of the first quarter against Syracuse that gave point guard Nika Muhl her 660th career assist. That pass broke Moriah Jefferson’s programrecordsetfrom201216, but the play that stood out to Muhl was Ashlynn’s steal with under a minute left in the fourth quarter that set up Arnold for the game-clinching 3-pointer.
“Ashlynn in March is different. March Ashlynn, I feel like that should be her new nickname,” Muhl said, grinning. “Coach gets so much on her about her defense and then she makes that winning play and strips the ball and gets us possession … She’s also a very emotional player, so to see her put those emotions aside and focus on the game and make winning plays, I’m just so proud of her, and she deserves everything.”
Ashlynn flexed that rediscovered confidence off the court too, poking fun at Auriemma after beating Jackson State on Saturday. She wore a t-shirt with a photo of the Huskies coach, about 30 years younger, screaming on the sideline with palms outstretched in a stance that looks all too familiar to his current players. It was one of several archival photos turned into fashion statements postgame, part of a 70th birthday surprise for Auriemma.
“I think this shirt sums up Coach’s relationship with me. This is what he looks like most of the time on the court,” Ashlynn said. “But when he yells at me, I’m just starting to translate it into I love you instead of you suck. So when he goes ‘You suck,’ I’m just like ugh, love you too!”
“You need a new translator,” Auriemma fired back.
She ducked her head with a bashful smile. The banter is still a work in progress.
“March Ashlynn, I feel like that should be her new nickname. Coach gets so much on her about her defense and then she makes that winning play and strips the ball and gets us possession … to see her put those emotions aside and focus on the game and make winning plays, I’m just so proud of her, and she deserves everything.” — Nika Muhl, on teammate Ashlynn Shade