Toronto, ON – It was six years ago, almost to the day, that a 15-year-old Aaliyah Edwards sat in the stands of Mattamy Athletic Centre watching Kia Nurse and the Connecticut Huskies defeat the Duquesne Dukes 104-52 on December 22nd, 2017, for Nurse’s senior homecoming game.
An annual tradition for the Huskies, the homecoming game is an opportunity for an out-of-state senior to get to play a non-conference game close to their friends and their family. Six years ago, Edwards watched Nurse dominate for the Huskies before herself being recruited to UConn in 2020.
So then, it was fitting that on Wednesday night, as Edwards played in her Homecoming Game in front of a soldout crowd at the Gardens, a blowout 111-34 win over the TMU Bold, Kia Nurse was in the stands watching her.
“It was a weird feeling because I was in the same position six years ago watching her when UConn played here in Canada, so to have her more on the sideline and I’m on the court, it’s different,” Edwards said.
“It’s kinda like I’m setting the path for somebody else to kinda create their own destiny with their future, so it was kind of a surreal moment.”
With the Pittsburgh Panthers, the original team set to face UConn pulling out of the game, that meant that the TMU Bold, who were originally just going to host the same way they did six years ago, offered to step up in their place.
It’s been a successful season for head coach Carly Clarke and the Bold as the 2022 U SPORTS National Champions have gone 10-0 through the first half of OUA play. Yet at the same time, facing the most successful NCAA program in history in the 11-time champion UConn Huskies, TMU were simply outmatched in every facet from the moment they stepped on the floor.
With fans still finding their seats on the fourth floor of Mattamy Athletic Centre, the Huskies started out scorching hot and by the time Edwards stripped an inbound pass from Hailey Franco-DeRyck and took it downcourt for a fast break layup for her second basket, it was 18-0 Connecticut less than four minutes in. It only got worse on the scoresheet.
For TMU, though, the night wasn’t about the boxscore it was about getting the opportunity to test themselves against one of the most historic programs in NCAA history.
“We’re trying to create experiences,” Clarke said. “Our program is trying to be the best at getting better, and you do that by playing the best.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma.
“I think it takes a little bit of courage to play us when you’re in Carly’s situation, and I admire that,” Auriemma said. “I think when you do something like this, I think you’re also sending a message that you believe in your team, you believe in your players, and you believe in the program that you’re building.”
The main reason for the night, though and the main star of the night was Aaliyah Edwards.
The 21-year-old was born about three hours east of Mattamy Athletic Centre in Kingston, Ontario, but played the last two years of her highschool experience at Crestwood Prep in North York before heading to Connecticut.
With the crowd buzzing from the moment when the PA announcer bellowed out her name to each time she got the ball, Edwards didn’t disappoint.
After a couple of early mistakes, “You could see she was nervous,” her coach pointed out, she settled in and proceeded to carve up the TMU defence to finish with a game-high 26 points to go along with ten rebounds.
Ultimately, coach Auriemma probably summed up Wednesday it best that, “The game didn’t mean anything; it was just the experience.”
It would have taken a miracle for TMU to win on Wednesday and the same as any other blowout win, there is only so much UConn can take X’s and O’s wise from a game where they shot 62.7% from the field.
Both teams knew that going in, though.
Rather Wednesday was about honouring and inspiring. Honouring the career of Aliyah Edwards who’s been a star in Huskie blue and white with a chance to play at home, and perhaps hopefully, just as she did six years ago when she watched Kia Nurse, inspiring the next Aliyah Edwards who might have sitting in the stands on Wednesday.
According to Edwards herself though, as she and the Huskies prepare to head into the march toward the Big East Championship and the fight for Connecticut’s first NCAA title since 2016,
“It was just a great day to play basketball.”