Breanna Stewart has been the toast of the game at every level of basketball she's ever played at, and has already started to impress in her freshman season at the University of Connecticut. Stewart chose to play for the Huskies over Syracuse, her hometown University, for a better chance to win a National Championship. The former Cicero-North Syracuse star was the # 1 recruit in the country coming out of high school, one of the most celebrated girls basketball players ever to come out of Central New York, and is now well on her way to showing she's worth all that celebration, now at the college level.
"She's at the place where she should be," says her former high school head coach Eric Smith, "she looks comfortable. I was able to go down and check out her first game, and then I've watched many of them on T.V., and she fits right in."
In fact, she's already earned some college bumps and bruises, coming back from an ankle injury to score 20 points against her hometown Syracuse Orange over the weekend, also adding 6 rebounds in the Huskies 87-62 win. She's the Huskies' second leading scorer with an average of over 14 points a game off the bench, and leads the team on the boards with an average of over 7 rebounds per game.
"Her game is (already) kind of a college game," says Smith of her seemingly easy transition to division one basketball, "she can play different positions, and her talent to begin with was far above and beyond high school, so she had a college game for many years."
Another thing that may be helpful to Stewart is her international experience, and having been the key player on a number of Team U.S.A. Teams along the way.
"She's comfortable in any setting," adds Smith, "she's comfortable around (anybody), playing with U.S.A. Basketball obviously helps that transition quite a bit, and she's played on four or five of those teams. She's been away from home, sometimes kids go away and go to College and that plays a part in it, she's comfortable with that."
