Big in the paint
How Ice Brady believed in herself for the team
UNCASVILLE — Twelve months ago, Ice Brady sat on UConn women’s basketball’s bench in street clothes.
She was unable to play, her knee still healing after dislocating her patella in practice six months prior.
Brady watched the Huskies win the Big East Tournament title last March and all she could do was cheer.
That’s what made her All-Big East Tournament Team honor Monday night so special. Not only had she stepped up when her team needed her most and exceeded even her own expectations, but she never left the floor and not once sat on the bench over the past two games.
“I just never would have pictured this being how things would have turned out,” she said. “… God is good, that’s all I have to say.”
Brady stepped in as the team’s only available forward this weekend after All-American Aaliyah Edwards went down with a broken nose 23 minutes into Saturdays’ quarterfinals.
The 6-foot-3 forward’s UConn journey before the weekend hadn’t been smooth. There was her season-ending knee injury her freshman year and her struggle with self-confidence this year. There were glimpses of talent, but never for long stretches.
But something finally clicked for Brady this weekend. Whether it was feeling her team’s trust or knowing there was no one else they could count on, she played her best basketball of her young UConn career.
“I feel like earlier in the season I let my emotions factor like how I performed,” she said. “Even though I was tired, Coach (Geno Auriemma) said there’s a switch in March and there’s no time for feelings. And I feel like I really took that to heart.” The San Diego native was the No. 5-ranked recruit in the Class of 2022. She won a gold medal with Team USA four months before her arrival in Storrs. Yet, she never got the chance to showcase that talent. Brady dislocated her patella during practice in late October after falling on her knee at just the right angle. She spent her true freshman season recovering and rehabbing and not playing a single game.
Rehab was hard. There were days where she was angry and sad and didn’t know how to process her emotions.
Also going through a similar situation was Paige Bueckers. The Husky star tore her ACL that August after missing a good chunk of the season prior to a separate knee injury. She was the 2021 National Player of the Year but here she was, sitting out again due to injury.
The two confided in each other. They ate breakfast together before heading to rehab and pushing each other through all the small and big milestones. Getting off crutches. Walking again. Getting cleared to do even the smallest of practice drills.
Bueckers helped Brady find her faith in God during that time. She showed her how to take all her emotions and despair and find a verse in the Bible to bring her peace and comfort. It’s how Bueckers coped and soon became how Brady did too.
“We just got so close through that time just, leaning on each, leaning on each other’s strength,” Bueckers said. “We built our faith together. We started going to Bible study together, going to church together. I just told her God’s timing is always perfect.”
Brady made her official collegiate debut in November, playing 11 minutes in UConn’s opener against Dayton. But it wasn’t your typical freshman debut.
Redshirt center Jana El Alfy tore her Achilles in July and sophomore forward Ayanna Patterson’s recovery from an offseason knee surgery wasn’t going as planned. All the preseason pressure ballooned over Brady — now
the official backup for Edwards. Auriemma told her the team needed her to play like a junior, not a freshman.
The nerves built up. She was 1 of 6 from the floor her first game. Missed all three of her shots the next game and combined for 1 of 11 during the team’s two games in the Cayman Islands over Thanksgiving.
Brady’s self-doubt began to consume her before boiling over during UConn’s game at Texas on Dec. 3.
Auriemma wanted to combat the Longhorns’ size and decided to start Brady alongside Edwards. He recognizes now, and takes full blame, that it was too much for Brady and too soon for her first career start.
“It was a horrible decision by me and put those guys in impossible situations, and specifically Ice,” he said. “But I always want to see whether Ice is going to compete. She doesn’t have to do everything right. She doesn’t have to be perfect, but I want to see what her competitive spirit was out there. … I just thought she didn’t compete. She was not competitive. And that really bothered me.”
Brady went 2 of 7 from the floor in 26 minutes. She looked overwhelmed and unsure of herself. She tried helping Edwards down low but couldn’t find room, so she moved out and twice missed shots from deep. She did too much and got yelled at. So, she backed off and again got yelled at. She finished with five turnovers and any drip of confidence totally evaporated.
“I felt I came up short for the team,” she said. “I struggled after that, and my minutes were up and down.”
It was hard coming back from that.
Her relationship with Auriemma in practice was now strained. She’d try
hard but things never clicked.
Yet, she didn’t give up. Auriemma said Brady couldn’t make it through 80 minutes of practice, but he’d often find her staying late or coming in early to work out and get shots up. He took it as a sign to reapproach his coaching.
“I realized that I needed to be much harder on her,” he said. “I needed to demand more from her and there were trying times leading up to this weekend, over the last two months. There were times in practice that she reverted back to her old self, and she paid the price for it.”
Brady scored a seasonhigh 17 points and grabbed four rebounds in 24 minutes at St. John’s and was UConn’s best defender at Creighton. She had her first career double-double at Xavier of 11 points and 14 rebounds and followed that up with 10 points, making all five of her shots, and five rebounds the very next game against Georgetown.
But still she struggled to build consistency.
“It was mentally very challenging for me,” Brady said. “I had a hard time getting used to his coaching style and just like trying to just understand what he was trying to get out of me. And at times, I didn’t see what he saw. And that made it harder for me, but the fact that he continued to push me even there was times where I felt like I was coming up short, not just for him, but for the team, showed how much he cared and believed in me, and I’m definitely glad that he did because all those hard days, all those failures just made me more hungry.”
Yet this weekend, she had no other choice but to be great. To be the player she knew she could be. The player that was still there waiting to rise above all the doubt and frustration.
Brady was on the bench watching when Edwards was hit in the face during the third quarter of UConn’s opening game of the Big East Tournament. She tried to steady her nerves as much as possible when Auriemma subbed in her and Edwards left the court bloodied. Her nose clearly broken.
Brady’s face must have given it away because during one of the very next plays Nika Mühl singled her out during a player huddle, demanding her to be good with a string of cuss words.
The tough love sunk in immediately. Brady looked at the bench and knew there was no one else. The only other available subs were guards.
She played her heart out. She was physical, but smart. She boxed out and put her arms up in opponents’ faces when they shot. On the other end, she didn’t hesitate to shoot the ball, but also knew when to move it out if she didn’t have a great look. Brady played 23 minutes, scored eight points and finished with three rebounds, one steal, one block and one assist.
Brady shared a hotel room with Bueckers over the weekend at Mohegan Sun. The two woke up each morning and did their Bible devotionals together as Bueckers gave Brady advice on how to meet the moment and handling the pressure.
“Just leaning on God and knowing that He prepared me for this,” Brady said. “With the timing, it was almost like too obvious. I was just so sure because having Aaliyah out, I feel like old me would have been like scared and a little timid, a little hesitant, but just seeing the way how everything felt; there was no reason for me not to be confident in my shot or my defense.”
Added Bueckers: “She’s had a lot of ups and downs through this season, inconsistencies. Being a freshman at UConn is hard. I’ve told her that many, many times. And just to see her growth, and just talk about the timing of her having to be at her best in the biggest moment, and her stepping up to that plate and being confident — everybody on the team believes in her, everybody on the coaching staff believes in her.”
On Sunday, with Edwards officially out the rest of the tournament, Brady’s moment grew. She started in place of the AllAmerican senior. This time, even with the pressure doubled, she remained solid.
She played the full 40 minutes and was UConn’s best defender. She muscled her way through crowded lanes and looked confident. She helped her teammates get open and demanded room under the hoop to gather rebounds. Brady recorded 10 points, five rebounds and even made a clutch 3pointer late in the first half.
She again started and played the entire game on Monday. Eighty straight minutes of basketball in back-to-back games.
The redshirt freshman scored seven of UConn’s first 11 points in the title game. She drew fouls and took contact with ease. She leaped up high to block shots and stalked her opponents to pounce on loose dribbles, stealing the ball. Brady was second on UConn with 13 points but led all players with eight rebounds. She earned a spot on the AllTournament Team — the only underclassmen to do so.
“I don’t know where we would be without Ice, especially this tournament,” Mühl said. “But I’m so so so proud of her … She’s grown so much over the
last couple of days and I’m so happy for her because she’s a great player. But sometimes you need to remind her what kind of great player she is. And this past three games she didn’t need no reminder, because she knew it. And she stepped up when we needed her the most and that takes some maturity, that takes everything. … She proved it, and she proved it to herself more than before everybody.”
Brady danced in raining confetti and hoisted up the conference tournament trophy after the Huskies were crowned champions. When Auriemma addressed the crowd after the game, he singled her out in his congratulatory remarks. The crowd erupted in agreement and the Hall of Fame coach didn’t mention any other individual player.
Brady was still beaming an hour or so later behind the court in a back tunnel of Mohegan Sun Arena. A champions shirt now on top of her jersey. A crowd of fans and parents cheered as she made her way back into the locker room.
When asked what was the most surreal moment of the weekend, Brady said it was taking an offensive charge on defense during the Providence game.
Not only was it the first charge she ever took in college, but she got right back up and continued playing. It was then, in that moment where the force of the Providence player sent her to the ground, that she realized she could do anything.
“I tell these kids, ‘There’s a reason why we recruited you, so I hope I’m not wrong,’ ” Auriemma said “… But at some point, you have to believe in yourself. And I think that’s evident that that’s a lot more than it used to be.”