NEW YORK — After the UConn women’s basketball team completed its undefeated regular season with a win over St. John’s at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, coach Geno Auriemma gave Wisconsin transfer Serah Williams some of the highest praise he has to offer.
“I told her that she played like a UConn player today,” Auriemma said. “She made plays today that we’re going to need her to make. She was the defensive presence that we need her to be, and she was assertive. That hasn’t always been the case all year long. Hopefully, this is the start of something.”
There was a ‘finally’ implied in the Huskies coach’s compliment, one he had to wait 31 games to give to the senior center. None of Williams’ numbers on Sunday night were season bests or even team highs, but it was the completeness of her performance and quality of her decision-making that made it stand out as one of her best games of the season. Williams finished with 11 points, six rebounds, three assists and two blocks shooting 5-for-6 from the field, also adding a pair of blocks without a single turnover in 20 minutes.
Auriemma knows how difficult it is for post players to fit into UConn’s system, and he was patient with Williams earlier in the season — publicly, at least. The 6-foot-4 center was the centerpiece at Wisconsin, averaging 19.2 points in 2024-25 on 15 field goal attempts per game. The Badgers never had a winning season during Williams’ three years, and she led the team in points, rebounds and blocks across her sophomore and junior seasons.
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“For big kids, making a move to come play at UConn is kind of difficult, because the things that we ask our bigs to do are a little bit different than some other places, and certainly than what she was used to with the way her team played,” Auriemma said. “The other thing that’s hard to learn is that every play matters, that every possession matters, that everything you do has purpose, and that we don’t take a play off.”
Williams is open about the mental challenges she’s faced during her transition to Storrs. Coming into a program loaded with five-star talent meant a drastic change in the senior center’s role, and figuring out how to remain impactful with far fewer touches was a steep learning curve. Though Williams showed flashes of what her ceiling could be, she struggled with inconsistency throughout Big East play.
“When the pressure is so high, I didn’t really expect it to affect me as much,” Williams said. “I took myself out my comfort zone, and I think I had to do that just to give myself a chance to see what I can learn from it. I’m just learning what it takes to win and be successful, and just the standards that this place has.”
Just three days before the regular-season finale at Madison Square Garden, Auriemma’s tolerance seemed to be wearing thin. In both UConn’s 84-52 win over Georgetown on Thursday and its Feb. 18 victory at Villanova, Auriemma benched Williams after playing less than five minutes in the first quarter and didn’t put the senior center back in the game until the start of the second half. Though Williams still started in every appearance, she went five straight games playing fewer than 20 minutes and split time evenly with redshirt sophomore center Jana El Alfy during that stretch.
To Williams’ credit, she responded each time she sat for an extended period. She put up six of her eight points at Villanova and all five against Georgetown early in the third quarter, but Auriemma was frustrated that it took benching Williams to bring out that mindset.
“I don’t like when we start the game and three out of the first four possessions we go inside, and we get nothing out of it. It’s wasted possessions,” Auriemma said. “Plus she doesn’t like when I take her out, and she comes out and plays better … Sometimes it’s our fault because we just don’t have an idea of what the hell we’re doing, and some of it’s her fault. We both have to be better, the rest of the guards and her.”
If Sunday’s performance was the start of a breakthrough for Williams, it comes at a perfect moment as UConn heads into March looking to become the first team to win back-to-back NCAA championships since the Huskies did it in 2015 and ’16 to complete the iconic four-peat. The postseason will come with a brand new set of challenges, in large part because Williams only played in a single conference tournament game — an 80-56 loss to Penn State in 2024 — over her three years at Wisconsin.
Williams entered the transfer portal because she wanted to compete in an NCAA Tournament before the end of her college career, but her lack of experience doesn’t lessen the expectations in March. Anything short of a national title will feel like a disappointment for the Huskies this season, and Williams has to adapt quickly to perform under such extreme pressure.
The Big East Tournament will give her a taste of postseason basketball, beginning Saturday for the No. 1 Huskies in the quarterfinals at Mohegan Sun Arena. Williams is embracing the upcoming test, especially after getting to celebrate the Big East regular-season championship with a confetti shower at PeoplesBank Arena last week.
“It’s still challenging. I came here to put myself in an uncomfortable position, to be able to get as much as I can out of collegiate basketball,” Williams said Sunday. “I just really do love this team and what I’ve been learning from everyone so far. I got my first t-shirt that says ‘champion’ on it, so that’s a big achievement. Coach probably has a bunch, but now I have my first one.”
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