Two years from now, when Sarah Strong has exhausted her college eligibility, Geno Auriemma might have a different answer to a question he was asked in an interview in mid-February.

Which five players from the storied legacy of UConn women’s basketball, he was asked, would make up his all-time team, the five he had coached who would jell together the best?

He might need to add Strong to his group of five, or at least rotate her in as the sixth woman. She cemented herself as part of the UConn legacy in a season that the Huskies (38-1) fell one game short of playing for their second consecutive national title.

Strong made a clean sweep of the nation’s player of the year honors on Friday, given the Wooden Award as the best player in women’s college basketball this season. She and Duke freshman Cameron Boozer were honored in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Boozer represented a back-to-back men’s winner for Duke, following in the footsteps of Cooper Flagg last season.

Strong added these player of the year awards to her collection: Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy, Wade Trophy, Associated Press Player of the Year, USBWA Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Year and Katrina McClain Power Forward of the Year.

On the season, Strong led UConn in points (18.4), rebounds (7.7), blocks (1.6) and steals (3.4) in 27.4 minutes per game. She shot 58.2% from the floor and 40.4% from 3-point range. 

With two years of college remaining, Strong could become the third member of the Huskies to win multiple Wooden Awards, joining Maya Moore (2009, '11) and Breanna Stewart (2015, '16). Strong is the fifth UConn woman to earn the honor, also won by Tina Charles in 2010 and Paige Bueckers in 2021.

Bueckers was a freshman when she took home the Wooden Award, which has been given to women since 2004. Four underclassmen have won – Moore (2009), Bueckers, Juju Watkins of Southern California (2025) and Strong.

In case you missed it, a summary. On “The Hoops HQ Show,” co-host Andy Katz put Auriemma on the spot, and he came up with this position-by-position team.

“Man, that's a hard one because, you know, we've had so many great players,” replied Auriemma, who just completed his 41st season at UConn has two more national championship teams than Wooden.

Wooden’s UCLA men’s teams won 10 titles between 1964 and 1975, including seven in a row from 1967-73.

“Sue Bird is the greatest playmaker maybe in the history of basketball -- college basketball, pro basketball -- I don't care. And then [Diana] Taurasi may be the whatever you want to describe her as. I think Tina Charles is probably the best rebounder, the best, you know, most forceful kid that we've had in there, and they've played together on Olympic teams.”

His remaining two? Start with Stewart.

“Stewie, being Stewie, meshes with everybody and is unguardable and is at that level a playmaker. That other one goes to Maya Moore, you know, and it's funny because I coached that team at the Olympics. So yeah, if somebody said pick one team, that's the five I would put out.”

His response two years from now could be different. And that likely would bother Stong, who counted Moore and Stewart among her favorite playes growing up and wants them to retain the respect they earned.

“I don’t know why we’re comparing that. Like, I’ve only been in college two years,” Strong told USA Today earlier this month. “Thank you for the compliment, but I don’t know, they’re really good and I don’t want to compare myself to them. I’ll just focus on what I can do to become a better basketball player.”

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