{"id":17502,"date":"2025-07-17T23:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/17502\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T23:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:07:09","slug":"ncaa-champion-huskies-turn-out-sparks-before-espys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/17502\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA champion Huskies turn out Sparks before ESPYs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UConn Huskies reached the mountain top for the 12th time in program history this season. With a team <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/uconn-womens-basketball-news-paige-bueckers-ends-college-career-on-top-demolition-south-carolina\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">led by Paige Bueckers, Sarah Strong, and Azzi Fudd<\/a>, Geno Auriemma put together a dominant season. The Huskies were in consideration for the \u201cBest Team\u201d award at this year&#8217;s ESPYs awards. Before the show, though, the Los Angeles Sparks showed them some love.<\/p>\n<p>Fudd, Strong, and most of the team went to the Sparks&#8217; game against the Washington Mystics on Monday. They threw t-shirts and celebrated their nomination for an ESPY awards with the Los Angeles crowd. Unfortunately, the <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nfl\/philadelphia-eagles\/eagles-news-jordan-mailata-perfect-speech-saquon-barkley-espys-win\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Huskies were beaten out by the Philadelphia Eagles for the \u201cBest Team\u201d award<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That did not stop UConn&#8217;s team from <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/lasparks\/status\/1945323071348597206?s=46&amp;t=dX0WTNrI0miHAqJBzVQESQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">having a good time<\/a> with the Sparks in a crossover of the NCAA and the WNBA. Los Angeles forward Azura Stevens won a title with the Huskies while she was in college and supported the newest generation of UConn stars as well. She is one of many former Huskies that are thriving in the WNBA.<\/p>\n<p>Breanna Stewart, Bueckers, and Tina Charles are just some of the 17 active players who spent time at UConn before turning pro. Most, if not all, attribute a lot of their success to Auriemma&#8217;s coaching and the excellence of the program.<\/p>\n<p>Bueckers and Kaitlyn Chen entered the WNBA after winning the 2025 NCAA National Championship. Now, the spotlight turns towards Fudd and Strong. The Huskies will enter next season as a favorite to win their second title in a row. For now, he and his team are still enjoying the fact that they are the reigning champions.<\/p>\n<p>Despite winning just months ago, Fudd has already started working at her game in preparation for next season. After winning a title with Bueckers, the Huskies&#8217; leader has back-to-back titles on her mind. If she can pull it off, it would add another chapter to the history book of one of the best teams in any American sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UConn Huskies reached the mountain top for the 12th time in program history this season. With a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[16393,402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-17502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-azzi-fudd","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17502","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=17502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}