The UConn women's basketball team took the floor Monday to tip off the program's second exhibition against Texas, but another group of Huskies suited up for a game on the other side of the country with far greater stakes.
The Golden State Valkyries hosted Game 2 of the WNBA Finals Monday evening, a team that includes four former UConn stars: Gabby Williams, Kiah Stokes, Tiffany Hayes, and Kaitlyn Chen. Williams, Golden State's best player, spoke on the USA Network broadcast about the bond shared by this group of former Huskies in the Valkyries locker room before the game.
"We do connect on it quite a bit," Williams told studio host and fellow UConn great Renee Montgomery. "We always joke about what messages CD [Chris Dailey] and coach send us after the game, because they talk to us like we're still 19 years old. You carry UConn with you for the rest of your life."
"You carry UConn with you for the rest of your life." Four Huskies on one WNBA Finals squad 🐺 Gabby Williams on the UConn bond and how she and her teammates joke about what messages Coach Geno Auriemma will send after each game 😂 https://t.co/kdVN8Ytvrf
- USA Sports (@usasports) October 19, 2026
UConn has been the WNBA's premier pipeline program since the league was formed in 1997, and Geno Auriemma has continued to hold off Dawn Staley and South Carolina as the top producer of professional talent. At the onset of the 2026 season, a league-high 16 WNBA players attended UConn, well ahead of South Carolina (12), UCLA (11) and Notre Dame (10).
Golden State has the largest collection of UConn players, bringing Huskies from multiple eras together under head coach Natalie Nakase in San Francisco. Tiffany Hayes is nearly 15 years removed from her senior season at UConn, playing alongside Maya Moore and Tina Charles in Storrs - the 5-foot-10 guard spent a decade with the Atlanta Dream and made one-year stops in Connecticut and Las Vegas before joining the Valkyries last season.
Stokes and Williams overlapped for one season at UConn, while Kaitlyn Chen spent just one season under Auriemma as a graduate transfer from Princeton, helping the Huskies capture a long-awaited national championship in 2025 and has forged a surprising WNBA career over the past two seasons. Auriemma has taken note of his former players' success, pulling for Golden State to win the WNBA Finals in their second season as an expansion franchise.
"I'm really proud of all of them, and that's probably the one team that I've watched play the most," Auriemma said last week. "They were playing Dallas, and somebody said, 'Hey, you know, you're rooting for Paige (Bueckers).' I said, 'No, I'm not. I'm rooting for Golden State.' (They have) four to (Dallas') one and a half (Huskies) because Azzi Fudd) didn't play."
UConn enjoyed a superb shooting night against Texas Monday, connecting on 10 of 18 attempts from 3-point range, but the program's alumni in Golden State weren't so fortunate. Williams, who has been Golden State's offensive dynamo all season and arguably the top scorer in the WNBA playoffs, went just 3-for-15 from the floor Monday - the Valkyries scored just 28 second-half points in a 79-65 loss, evening the series at 1-1.
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This article originally published at Gabby Williams talks Golden State's UConn connection before WNBA Finals: 'Rest of your life'.