Her best is yet to come
UConn trying to unlock Aubrey Griffin’s potential
SAN ANTONIO — Dan Ricci is still coaching Aubrey Griffin. Not when she’s playing, of course, but in those moments of anticipation or reflection when all is seemingly quiet.
He texts her before and after every game, usually with some sort of positive message.
“She doesn’t react to getting on her as much as she does building her up,” said Ricci, who coached Griffin at Ossining (N.Y.) High School. “I used to do a lot of building her up before games.”
There aren’t many better athletes than Griffin, a UConn sophomore. She’s competitive enough to fight for a rebound and quick enough to glide down the court and score in transition.
But consistency has been a problem.
As UConn marches along in San Antonio in search of its 12th national championship, the 6-foot-1 Griffin remains an enigma — a shy, guarded personality whose best is seemingly still to come.
The Huskies, a No. 1 seed for the 13th time in 14 years, play eighthseeded Syracuse in the second round Tuesday at 9 p.m. (ESPN) at the Alamodome.
“You can watch Aubrey play for a minute, and you go, ‘This kid should start and play 40 minutes. What’s wrong with the coach?’ ” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said earlier this season. “And you can watch Aubrey for the next minute and go, ‘This kid shouldn’t play more than one minute any game.’ ”
Griffin was a force off the bench in Sunday’s first-round win over
16th-seeded High Point, collecting nine points and seven rebounds in
13 minutes. Prior to that, in the Big East championship against Marquette, she didn’t see the floor until late in the third quarter and played only 10 minutes, finishing with two points.
She’s averaging 6.7 points and is third on the team in rebounding, grabbing 5.2 per game.
“There are games where she’s one of our best offensive rebounders,” UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said. “Her and (freshman Aaliyah Edwards), they give us a great lift off the bench. That’s something we need her to continue to do.”
Again … consistency.
Ricci has sent three players to UConn — Saniya Chong (2013), Andra Espinoza-Hunter (2017) and Griffin (2019). Each was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school, heralded enough to play for the most illustrious program in women’s basketball.
But Griffin, a McDonald’s AllAmerican, was unique in the way she carried herself.
“She never knew how good she was,” Ricci said. “That was a problem with her. Most kids, like an Andra Espinoza-Hunter, these kids
know how good they are. She was never like that.”
Chong, a steady if unspectacular guard, logged
144 games at UConn, 42 as a starter, and won three national championships from 2014-16 before playing in the WNBA and then overseas. Espinoza-Hunter, also a guard, didn’t even last a full season in Storrs, transferring to Mississippi State and then to Seton Hall, where she’s seemingly found a home, averaging
18.6 points this past season and making the All-Big East Team.
And Griffin? Her path is still being forged.
“She’s at the best place you could be because she wants to be a pro,” Ricci said. “I think eventually, I don’t know when it’s going to happen, everybody’s going to see how great she is.”
Griffin — the daughter of former NBA forward and current Toronto Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin — was playing her best basketball when COVID-19 shut down the 2020 NCAA Tournament. She had made the American Athletic Conference All-Tournament team, asserting herself as a
Swiss army knife off the bench.
She produced a doubledouble in her first collegiate start this season, with 17 points and 10 boards versus Butler on Jan. 19. She would start the next four games, but was back on the bench after banging her knee in practice. She then played only two minutes over the following two games, sitting out entirely against Marquette on Feb.
5.
In 12 games since she returned, Griffin has played between nine and 23 minutes, averaging 4.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals.
“She was playing really well,” Ricci said. “That injury set her back. Her minutes aren’t what they were the beginning of the year, so it’s kind of difficult. … I think she’s just a little unsure of herself. I don’t know why.
“She can do so much more than she’s doing.”
Griffin isn’t one to voice her frustrations. She rarely lets her emotions show.
“She was never a boastful kid,” Ricci said. “She’d score 50 in a high school game and I’d tell her afterward. She’d be like, ‘Really, I did?’ No clue. That’s the way she always was.”