{"id":225448,"date":"2026-05-09T02:46:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/225448\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T02:46:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:46:24","slug":"uconn-alum-aubrey-griffin-signs-with-new-york-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/225448\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn alum Aubrey Griffin signs with New York Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than a week after she was cut by the Minnesota Lynx<\/a> during training camp, former UConn women\u2019s basketball<\/a> forward Aubrey Griffin<\/a> is back on a WNBA roster.<\/p>\n

Hours before the first game of the regular season, the New York Liberty signed Griffin and guard Julie Vanloo to hardship contracts. Both players will be available for the team\u2019s opener against the Connecticut Sun<\/a> on Friday, which tips off at 7:30 p.m. at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Hardship contracts are seven-day agreements that allow a team to exceed the 12-man roster limit when it has fewer than 10 players available.<\/p>\n

New York is down five players for Friday\u2019s opener: Superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu is out with a left foot injury she suffered last Sunday in a preseason game against the Sun, veteran guard Rebecca Allen has a left leg injury and All-Star foward Satou Sabally has a cyst. Rookie forward Raquel Carrera and 2024 WNBA champion Leonie Fiebich are also away from the team completing their commitments with clubs overseas.<\/p>\n

Griffin showed flashes of a high ceiling at UConn, averaging 7.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.3 steals shooting 53.3% from the field across five seasons with the Huskies. But her career was heavily impacted by injuries: She redshirted the 2021-22 season after undergoing surgery to repair a disc injury in her back, then tore her left ACL midway through 2023-24. Griffin\u00a0was never fully healthy during UConn\u2019s 2024-25 season averaging just 11.3 minutes on the court in 16 game appearances.<\/p>\n

The Lynx took a chance on Griffin in the 2025 WNBA Draft, selecting the 6-foot-1 forward with the No. 36 pick in the third round, but she didn\u2019t report to training camp because of lingering issues with her left knee. She had arthroscopic knee surgery last April and spent most of the past year rehabbing.<\/p>\n

Griffin had a strong showing in Minnesota\u2019s first 2026 preseason game logging six points, two rebounds, a block and a steal against the Washington Mystics on April 25, but she went scoreless in the second and was waived from the Lynx\u2019s camp on May 2.<\/p>\n

Griffin, who grew up in Ossining, New York, has the chance to play close to home in her first career WNBA game Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper grateful that I get to come back home, and I\u2019m here around family. It feels nice,\u201d Griffin told The Associated Press on Friday.<\/p>\n

Griffin\u2019s signing gives UConn a league-leading 17 former players on opening day rosters in the WNBA. She joins Huskies legend Breanna Stewart in New York and will compete against a pair of former UConn teammates with the Connecticut Sun on Friday in Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia Nelson-Ododa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a week after she was cut by the Minnesota Lynx during training camp, former UConn women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[88618,3361,68627,28775,28777,267,39356,68624,9,11,8915,10,319,3602,88617,11452,77798,19362],"class_list":["post-225448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aubrey-griffin","tag-college-basketball","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-ct-news","tag-hartford-courant","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports","tag-uconn-huskies","tag-uconn-womens-basketball","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-draft","tag-womens-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}