All-time All-UConn Team

Assuming UConn finishes the deal and wins its 11th National Championship tomorrow night, Breanna Stewart will complete the greatest career in college basketball history.  Sure, you can argue that Bill Walton or Kareem was the greatest college basketball player ever, but freshmen weren't eligible during the UCLA dynasty years.  So, Stewart and Moriah Jefferson would be the first basketball players in NCAA history (men or women) to win four National Championships in four years.

The crazy thing about Stewart, though, is that while her career will go down as the best in history, she's not the best player in program history.  She's in my all-time UConn starting five, but I've only got her ranked third on my list of greatest Huskies ever, behind Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi.

But who else would be on an all-time All-UConn team?  Well, who doesn't make it speaks to the absolute top-notch caliber of the players Geno Auriemma has brought to Storrs.  As much as I wanted to include them, Renee Montgomery, Shea Ralph, Kerry Bascom and Kara Wolters don't even make the top 10.  It's that loaded.  In fact, you know what, throw in Tamika Williams and that's your All-Time All-UConn Third Team.

Moving on to the second team, we've got...

• Nykesha Sales, 1994-98: She was a freshman on the first title team in 1994-95 and a First Team All-American as a senior.  Her 2,178 career points were a UConn record when she graduated.
• Swin Cash, 1998-2002: Cash was only the third-best player on that outstanding 2001-02 team, but she's the one who was named Most Outstanding Performer at the Final Four before being taken second in the WNBA Draft.  Two Olympic gold medals later, she's still chugging in the WNBA.
• Asjha Jones, 1998-2002: Asjha Jones, the fourth-best player on the 2001-02 team was Big East Tournament MVP that season.  Oh, and she was picked fourth in the 2002 WNBA Draft.
• Rebecca Lobo, 1991-95: Someone had to be there at the beginning, and that woman was Rebecca Lobo.  She was the National Player of the Year during that first championship season in 1994-95.  Then, after winning gold with the 1996 Olympic team, she was one of the trailblazers during the WNBA's inaugural season, as well.  Now, of course, she's one of ESPN's studio analysts during the women's tournament.
• Jennifer Rizzotti, 1992-96: After Lobo graduated, it was Rizzotti's turn to be National Player of the Year.  The point guard on that 1994-95 team, she set school records (since broken) for assists and steals.  Rizzotti may be UConn's coach-in-waiting once Geno decides to retire (whenever that is).  She's been head coach at Hartford since 1999-2000 and led the Hawks to six NCAA Tournaments.

Now for the creme de la creme.  The best of the best.  The five greatest players in UConn history...

• Maya Moore, 2007-11: There's nobody who comes close to Maya Moore.  UConn lost to Stanford in the Final Four during her freshman year.  They didn't lose again until Maya was a senior, going a ridiculous 150-4 during her career.  Along the way, she won three National Player of the Year awards and was a four-time All-American.  UConn's all-time scoring leader (3036 points, fourth in NCAA history), she's the only women's player in history with 2500 points, 1000 rebounds, 500 assists, 250 steals and 150 blocks.  Oh yeah, she was also a three-time First Team Academic All-American.  And did I mention she's arguably the best player in the WNBA right now?
  
• Diana Taurasi, 2000-04: When everybody graduated after the 2001-02 season, Diana Taurasi was still there.  And all she did was win two Naismith Trophies and lead the Huskies to two more National Championships.  Prior to her last game, Geno described UConn's chances of winning as "We have Diana and you don't."  That pretty much sums it up.  All she's done since leaving UConn is win three WNBA titles, been named First Team All-WNBA nine times and be a stalwart on Team USA.  She'll be going for her fourth straight Olympic gold in Rio.
  
• Breanna Stewart, 2012-16: Back when she was a wee freshman, I worked the regional in Bridgeport, where she was named MVP.  That's when I knew we had the next UConn star on our hands.  Baylor was supposed to win the title in Brittany Griner's senior year, but they got upset by Louisville and it was UConn that cut down the nets, with the freshman being named Final Four MVP.  She's done that twice more and been National Player of the Year three times in the last three seasons.  One more win and she'll be the first basketball player ever to graduate as a four-time National Champion.  Oh, yeah, and UConn is 115-1 over the last three years.
  
• Sue Bird, 1998-2002: Sue Bird, without question, is the greatest point guard UConn has ever produced.  They created the Nancy Lieberman Award for the best point guard in 2000, and she won the first three.  She was also National Player of the Year during that 2001-02 season, when she had a ridiculous 231 assists!  Like her backcourt mate Taurasi, Bird was the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft (Breanna Stewart will be her teammate in Seattle this season), as well as a three-time Olympic gold medalist.
  
• Tina Charles, 2006-10: Choosing the fifth player for the All-UConn First Team wasn't actually all that difficult.  It's probably because she was a teammate of Maya Moore, but it's taken for granted how good Tina Charles actually was.  She actually won one of the Player of the Year awards as a senior, preventing Maya from winning three in a row.  She's the Huskies' all-time leading rebounder and is third in scoring (behind Moore and Stewart) and was the most dominant post player in the nation before Brittany Griner came along.  Charles has since been a WNBA Rookie of the Year and MVP, and she'll likely be on her second Olympic team this summer.
  

As for the greatest UConn team of all-time, I have to agree with Doris Burke.  It's gotta be that 2001-02 squad that featured four players picked among the top six in the WNBA Draft.  The Maya Moore-Tina Charles-Renee Montgomery teams that had the 90-game winning streak rank second, followed by the first undefeated championship squad in 1994-95, then the 40-0 team from two years ago that had Stefanie Dolson and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, as well as Stewart and Jefferson.  The current team hasn't lost in two years, so they've got to rank pretty highly up there, too, but it's crazy to think that it's only the fifth-best undefeated group in school history.