STORRS — The first play Kaitlyn Chen made in her Gampel Pavilion debut on Sunday was executed to perfection.
A sold-out crowd packed into the arena to see the No. 2 UConn women’s basketball team host South Florida, and they didn’t have to wait long for the Huskies’ first bucket. After winning the tipoff, Chen came off a screen set by Ice Brady with eyes locked on the basket before pulling the ball across her body to thread a perfectly-timed bounce pass to Brady cutting towards the rim. The sophomore forward lofted in an easy layup, pointing at Chen in celebration as she got back on defense.
The Huskies went on to rout USF 86-49, and Chen finished with eight points and seven assists in 22 minutes as a starter. The graduate transfer from Princeton is in her first season with Huskies, but she is by far the most veteran available player on the roster besides redshirt senior Paige Bueckers. In their current 10-man rotation, the Huskies have four first-year players and four with only a single season of college experience.
“She’s played a lot of basketball, so I trust her,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “I trust her to make decisions, and whatever decision she makes, I’m okay with it and we’ll talk about it after. She’s not one of these kids that’s checking in with me to see, should I pass it? Should I shoot it? So I’ve got tremendous confidence in her.”
Chen came to UConn known as a scoring point guard after averaging a team-high 15.8 points shooting 48.8% in 2023-24 with the Tigers. She entered the transfer portal with 1,276 career points after four years at Princeton under coach Carla Berube, a UConn alum, and she was Auriemma’s first transfer signee since Lou Lopez-Senechal in 2022.
Kaitlyn Chen
Ice Brady to start the game! https://t.co/Y7wCUnejvF pic.twitter.com/qxGh0nLCWE
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) November 10, 2024
Ice Brady to start the game! But while Chen’s capability as a scorer offers an exciting new dimension for the Huskies, it isn’t the role that the team needs her to play on a consistent basis. Chen is stepping into the shoes of point guard Nika Muhl, who left UConn in 2024 as a two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year and the program record-holder for career assists but averaged just 6.9 points per game. Auriemma has explicitly placed the keys to the offense in Bueckers’s hands this season as he pushes his superstar to take a more aggressive approach, so the Huskies have to develop other strong playmakers to sustain that effort.
“I’d like for (Chen) to get more creative with the ball,” Auriemma said. “We started the game with her making a great play on that bounce pass to Ice, but she’s either all into throwing a pass, or all into, I’m scoring no matter what. There’s got to be a little bit of a nuance there of when to can look like I’m trying to score, but I’m conscious of that pass that I’m gonna throw … I’d like to see her keep the ball alive a little bit longer.”
After the opening assist to Brady against USF, Chen found another window on UConn’s second possession. She nailed a pass in to Bueckers cutting through the paint, who dished it across the baseline to Brady for another two. Chen entered halftime with six assists including three to Bueckers, who shot 8-for-9 for 19 points in the first half.
Building chemistry was a early priority for UConn’s most experienced starters once Chen arrived on campus this summer. Bueckers said they played lots of pickup basketball outside of practices to get a better feel for each other’s tendencies, and that connection is already coming together on the court after just two games.
“It definitely came with time and a lot of reps in the preseason just playing with each other,” Bueckers said. “I feel like she’s done a really good job of adapting to her new role here. She’s a scorer, as am I, but she’s done a really great job of finding me, finding our teammates, getting us into the offense, just controlling our pace on offense and defense. It’s just her adaptability and her knowledge of the game.”
UConn women’s basketball forward Sarah Strong earns first Big East Freshman of the Week honors
Bueckers has also found a seamless rhythm with star freshman Sarah Strong, who was named the Big East Freshman of the Week after her performances in the Huskies’ wins. Strong averaged 15 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and four steals across her first two college games, and Auriemma said it hasn’t surprised him to see the rookie settle in so quickly alongside a player of Bueckers’ caliber. Both were the No. 1 recruits coming out of high school, Bueckers in 2020 and Strong in 2024.
“Chemistry usually occurs between players that have similar traits, similar characteristics, so if you’re a really creative playmaker, like Paige is, you can develop chemistry with another one very quickly who also has that,” Auriemma said. “If you can see the game, a certain way like Paige does, you can develop chemistry with someone also sees the game that way. When you’re together for a little bit of time, you start to almost anticipate what the other person is thinking and what they’re going to do because you think alike.”
