November 14, 2024
Kaitlyn Chen, Sarah Strong present familiar faces for UNC’s Courtney Banghart in battle versus UConn
As Tar Heels prepare to face UConn, Banghart must gameplan against two players she recruited hard
Back in April of 2019, Courtney Banghart was enthralled with the idea of coaching Kaitlyn Chen. The 5’8 native of La Canada, Calif. was an ESPN Top 100 recruit, another highly talented prospect that Banghart somehow lured to Princeton over offers from major conference programs. Like Bella Alarie and Blake Dietrick before her, Chen seemed primed to be Banghart’s next great player for the overachieving Tigers, one who could lead them to Ivy League titles and NCAA Tournament appearances.
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And Chen would do that, winning the Ivy League’s Player of the Year award in 2023, earning an honorable mention All-American nod last season from the WBCA, and helping Princeton win NCAA Tournament games over N.C. State and Kentucky. However, Chen accomplished those feats without Banghart on the sidelines.
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Hours before Chen’s official visit to Princeton some five years ago, Banghart accepted her offer to become the next head coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But Chen was already on her way to campus, and still, Banghart thought the Ivy League program nestled in New Jersey would be the best place for her. The two met for breakfast and tears were shed between them as Chen was one of the first people to learn Banghart was leaving for the ACC.
“So, the very first person outside of my family that I told that I was going to be the next coach at Carolina was Kaitlyn Chen,” Banghart recalled during a media availability on Thursday.
And then, before the news spread wide and she packed her bags for North Carolina, Banghart honored Chen’s visit, spending the next 36 hours with her and convincing her that Princeton was the place to be. Chen didn’t commit to Princeton that day, but joined the Tigers after Carla Berube got the job.
Now, for the first time ever, Banghart and Chen will share the same court, albeit on opposite sides.
Chen transferred to UConn this offseason and will be the No. 2 Huskies’ starting point guard when they face the No. 14 Tar Heels on Friday night in Greensboro, N.C. Chen’s presence offers another challenge — and another familiar face — to the Tar Heels as they attempt to avenge last season’s loss to the Huskies at Mohegan Sun Arena.
“She’s a very good add and that’s a fifth-year kid that’s running your point,” Banghart said. “You also add a good running mate for [Paige Bueckers] that’s different.”
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Chen hasn’t exactly wowed in her short time as a member of the Huskies so far, but she did have eight points and seven assists in 24 minutes of action in a blowout win over South Florida. But anyone who watched her play for the Tigers knows what Chen is capable of. The three-time Most Outstanding Player of the Ivy League Tournament averaged 14.2 points, 4.1 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game during her time at Princeton — a three-year career that twice saw her eclipse the 30-point mark and dish out double-digit assists three times.
When facing UConn, long a juggernaut in this sport, Chen being in the lineup just adds to the challenge for the Tar Heels.
“They’re playing much of the same system with a little bit better pieces and more experienced pieces,” Banghart said.
It’s an early test for both teams too, and the first ranked opponent on the schedule for both squads. Originally, the contest was slated for Dec. 15, but when the ACC added three new teams in Stanford, Cal and SMU, the conference schedule had to be rejiggered a bit. Banghart asked Geno Auriemma — whom she interviewed nearly two decades ago for her Dartmouth graduate thesis on coaching as a vocation — to move the game up, and he obliged. Should UConn win, Auriemma will tie former longtime Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer as the winningest coach in all of college basketball.
The date change, however, won’t make the Huskies any more or less difficult to defend. At the top of the scouting report for the Tar Heels is, of course, two-time consensus All-American and former National Player of the Year, Paige Bueckers.
A year ago, Bueckers finished 10th in country in scoring, with 22 points per game, and also second in win shares, with a mark of 8.9, while leading UConn to the Final Four. Last season at Mohegan Sun Arena, Bueckers put up 26 points and four blocks in a 12-point win over the Tar Heels, torching some of the players she used to match-up against in Midwest AAU circuits, like Lexi Donarski and Alyssa Ustby.
“I think Paige is probably the consensus No. 1 [2025 WNBA] draft pick — that’s my own assessment. I think what makes her special is her ability to counter the leads that you give her,” Banghart said. “And so, she’s not really a kid you can scheme a ton against, right? Because if you do this, she’ll do that, but she reads it in live time … She’s just a really tremendous and skilled offensive player. She’s also very unselfish. So, if you focus too much of your game plan on stopping Paige, not only is that not easy, but then you give other All-Americans an opportunity to be more open.”
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Meanwhile, it remains to be seen if Sarah Strong will blossom into an All-American as a freshman, but she’s someone Banghart and the Tar Heels know well and will have to account for. Strong spent her high school career just 38 miles south of Chapel Hill in Sanford, N.C., at Grace Christian School. There, she became the first North Carolinian to be ranked as the best high school women’s basketball recruit in the country since Shea Ralph who — nearly three decades before Strong — also chose the Huskies over the Tar Heels.
During the recruiting process, which went deep into last season, Strong was around the Tar Heels quite a bit, coming to a handful of practices and games. Her father and grandparents made appearances in Carmichael Arena too. During her official visit, she saw UNC’s football team play and participated in a game of axe-throwing at Banghart’s home. Banghart and assistant coach Joanne Aluka-White made frequent trips south to see Strong play in high school.
“It really came down to us and [UConn] in the end,” Banghart said. “She’s a kid and a family that we really hold dear, so it’s the only game on the schedule that I won’t be rooting really hard for her, to be honest. She’s a lovable kid who’s got a generational-type talent. She’ll be a real joy for everybody to watch throughout her career, but yeah, she’s a formidable match-up.”
So far, in two starts for the Huskies, Strong is averaging 15 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. As a high schooler, her game drew comparisons to Denver Nuggets’ center Nikola Jokic from scouts and opposing coaches.
“What makes Sarah special is a lot of the things that make Paige special in that she’s really gifted, generationally, on the offensive side of the ball in terms of her feel and her instincts and her ability to make the right play,” Banghart said. “But also, she’s a true three-point threat, one of the best shooters you’ll see.”
A three-point threat to emerge recently for the Tar Heels is redshirt freshman Laila Hull, who knocked down 4-of-7 looks from behind the arc in UNC’s recent win over North Carolina A&T. Hull, the daughter of Delaware State football coach Lee Hull, missed all of last season while recovering from shoulder surgery.
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Hull was one of many players unavailable for UNC when it traveled to UConn’s territory a year ago. Despite a slow start, the Tar Heels tied the game at 36-36 by halftime. But Reniya Kelly — who had six points and three assists during the Tar Heels’ second quarter comeback — was ruled out for the second half with concussion-like symptoms. And so, with just six available players, UNC struggled to keep up with the Huskies.
This season, the Tar Heels haven’t totally avoided injury troubles — it’s unclear if Maria Gakdeng, Indya Nivar or Kayla McPherson will be available — but they played 10 players against North Carolina A&T and should have that group to take into battle against the Huskies.
