Williams-Jeter opens her second season as UD coach against her alma mater. Dayton plays No. 2 Connecticut at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the XL Center in Hartford. It’s the opener for both teams.
Williams-Jeter played for UConn from 1998-2002, scoring scoring 1,180 points while helping to lead the Huskies to national championships in 2000 and 2002. She ranks 33rd in school history in scoring. She’s the program’s career leader in field-goal percentage (70.3).
Williams-Jeter will coach against her college coach, Geno Auriemma, who has led the program to 11 national championships, for the first time as a head coach. According to CTInsider.com, UConn is 78-0 against opponents with Auriemma’s former players, assistant coaches or graduate assistants on their staff.
What makes Auriemma special? Williams-Jeter knows that answer as well as anyone.
“I think it’s just not being afraid of a high standard and a high expectation,” she said. “He makes it about the people. The one thing he used to say in recruiting is, ‘My players always come back,’ and at the time, I really didn’t know what that meant. But as you spend years playing, there are certain people that I’ve been around and people who I have made friends with throughout the game who don’t go back to their schools because they didn’t have a great relationship or a great experience, and that’s not the case for me. The other thing is he’s never afraid to evolve. Coach will be 70, I think, next year, and he continues to evolve and still bring in the best players in the country, and they’re still playing at a high level.”
Dayton is 0-4 against UConn with losses. It lost 78-38 in Storrs in 2011, 91-70 in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament in 2015, 98-65 in Storrs in 2016 and 75-37 at UD Arena in 2019.
Connecticut finished 31-6 last season and lost in the Sweet 16. It returns its leading scorer, senior Aaliyah Edwards (16.6 points per game), and also returns redshirt junior Paige Bueckers, who was the national player of the year as a freshman in the 2020-21 season but 19 games as a sophomore with a knee injury and all of last season.
“She can do it all,” Williams-Jeter said. “She’s a big guard. She can play multiple positions. She has great coordination. She shoots the ball at a high rate. She has high energy. She’s very competitive kid.”
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