Before becoming business partners and starting a new women’s basketball league, Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier were teammates for one season at the University of Connecticut. However, the senior did not coddle the freshman. Instead, she gave her “Welcome to College” moment.
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In a conversation filmed for the duo’s Unrivaled league’s Instagram account, Collier recalled Stewart’s disrespectfully blocking her shot attempt during a pickup game to remind her that she was no longer playing on a team where was the star. The Minnesota Lynx star said,
“You know they have like welcome to the league moments, my welcome to college moment. We were playing pickup and I tried to shoot it, and you literally just took it out of the air. You were like, “F**k out of here”. And took it down the other way, I was like woah!”
Stewart wanted to send the freshman a message that she’d have to up her game quickly to survive in the cutthroat college basketball world. Despite joining a roster that had won three straight national titles, Collier learned in an instant that her work wasn’t done but was only beginning.
The UConn icon’s intensity in practice rubbed off on the rest of the roster, including the freshman. They’d go on to win the program’s fourth straight NCAA title without losing a single game. Stewart capped off her UConn career with a fourth Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player award, cementing her legacy as one of the greatest women’s college basketball stars.
Collier spent the next three years trying to lead the program to another NCAA title and emulating Stewart in winning the MOP award. However, the furthest she could lead them was to the Final Four, where they lost three straight times.
The forward declared for the 2019 WNBA draft, where the Lynx picked her sixth overall. Collier may not have led UConn to a title, but she left the program as one of its greatest players. She’s the University’s third-highest points scorer behind Maya Moore and Stewart.
Without the senior treating her like a peer in practice rather than a freshman who needed coddling, Collier likely wouldn’t have cracked the team’s rotation in her debut season. Stewart made it clear that she expected excellence and the young forward stepped up to the plate.
The duo teamed up again in 2021 to help their nation win gold at the Tokyo Olympics. They are now starting a new 3×3 league together that could revolutionize women’s basketball. Stewart and Collier have seen nothing but success together, which is a good omen for their latest venture.
