Kobe’s Daughter Gigi Honored By UConn Women's Basketball With Jersey After Her Death
Gianna Bryant is “forever a Husky,” the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team says.
ESPN reports that the 13-year-old aspiring basketball star considered UConn her dream college.
Gianna, known as Gigi, was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday (Jan. 26) in Calabasas, Calif., along with her father, Kobe Bryant, and seven others.
At the start of an exhibition game Monday (Jan. 27) at XL Center in Hartford, Conn., the Huskies and USA Basketball honored both father and daughter. UConn placed a No. 2 Huskies jersey with flowers on their bench in tribute to Gigi and on social media referred to her as “forever a Husky,” ESPN reports.
"You can't react to something like that and say, 'Well, this is what you do when this happens,'" Auriemma said in addressing Bryant's and Gigi's deaths after the game, ESPN reports. "You don't know what to do or what to say."
Among the tributes during the game, the convention center’s jumbotron featured a photo of Bryant and Gigi together at the game. During a 24-second moment of silence in honor of Bryant’s No. 24, Coach Auriemma and members of both teams and coaching staffs were visibly moved, ESPN reports.
Coach Auriemma recalled meeting Gigi a few years ago when she attended a UConn basketball game with Bryant, ESPN reports.
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"You could just see the look in her eyes. She was so excited," Auriemma told ESPN of Gigi's excitement to meet the Huskies, who in turn were starstruck by her father. "That's what she aspired to be.
He added, ESPN reports, “When she came up here on campus, if she could have stayed, I think she would have stayed."
Auriemma also told ESPN about his fondest memory of the NBA legend.
"Probably when we were talking in Italian at one of the [Olympic] competitions. It was really kind of a neat conversation,” the head coach recalled. “We talked about his dad, who was my age. We played against each other in high school."
Like many others, Auriemma felt Bryant was just getting started, especially when it came to his contributions to women’s basketball, with his daughter’s involvement, ESPN reports.
"He had a big impact on the world of sports," Auriemma told ESPN. "Introducing the NBA to a whole part of the world that didn't know about it. And his businesses, all the stuff that he's done, those are things that will last forever. He probably would have had a bigger impact on his kids, more than anything."
