The UConn Huskies women\u2019s basketball team has produced some of the best WNBA talent. Napheesa Collier is on pace to join the likes of Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird as one of the most successful alumni. Unfortunately, she didn\u2019t experience the same NCAA success as those who came before her due to heartbreaking endings. Those shortcomings left a lasting impact on her for many years.<\/p>\n
Napheesa Collier<\/a> began her collegiate career with a bang by assisting the Huskies to an NCAA championship in the 2015-16 season. That year, she didn\u2019t have as significant a role as she\u2019d have in her later years. Collier only averaged 6.8 points per game while playing 17.2 minutes off the bench.<\/p>\n The following year, head coach Geno Auriemma drastically increased Collier\u2019s role, and she became the team\u2019s star. Unfortunately, she wasn\u2019t able to repeat a championship in the 2017 NCAA Tournament. In the Final Four, Mississippi State snapped UConn\u2019s 111-game winning streak on an overtime buzzer-beater by Morgan William.<\/p>\n Many people look at that game as the biggest upset in women\u2019s college basketball history. It only made sense that Collier and the rest of the returning players would enter the following season with a chip on their shoulder.<\/p>\n In 2018, UConn battled back to the Final Four but found themselves in a similar situation. A matchup against Notre Dame was a bit of deja vu for Collier, when Arike Ogunbowale knocked down a game-winner<\/a> to send the Huskies home once again.<\/p>\n In an appearance on the Bird\u2019s Eye View\u00a0podcast, Sue Bird revealed a question Geno had for Collier. He wanted to know if the back-to-back buzzer beaters still hurt. Collier gave a candid response.<\/p>\n \u201cOh my gosh, yes,\u201d Collier quickly said<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m not even going to lie. Until the past, I would say two years, three years maybe, every time we got to an end-of-game situation and it was really close, I had PTSD.\u201d<\/p>\n Collier was incredibly young when she suffered those heartbreaking losses. Luckily, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant<\/a> came to her side to offer advice. Those words molded her into the player she is today.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was one of the first times I talked to Kobe Bryant,\u201d Collier revealed. \u201cI asked him, \u2018What would\u00a0 you do differently?\u2019 He said, \u2018You know the shot clock in your head, and then you count it down. Once you get to like 5 seconds, you can press up more because she doesn\u2019t have time to beat you.’\u201d<\/p>\n Those wise words from Bryant boosted Collier\u2019s confidence and improved her ability to defend in those high-stakes scenarios. Now, she looks to capitalize on everything<\/a> she has learned from those experiences as she pushes to win her first WNBA<\/a> championship this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UConn Huskies women\u2019s basketball team has produced some of the best WNBA talent. Napheesa Collier is on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-104926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}