Vanessa Bryant on UConn championship: Gigi | College News
Gianna Bryant was a basketball prodigy who was “hell-bent” on at some point enjoying basketball at Connecticut.
That’s what her father, Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, instructed The Times in 2019.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant have been among the many 9 people who died in a Calabasas helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020. Gigi was 13 years previous and in eighth grade on the time.
Had she completed high college in 4 years and gone on to play for coach Geno Auriemma at UConn like she had hoped, Gianna would have been a freshman participant on the Huskies group that defeated South Carolina 82-59 on Sunday for his or her twelfth NCAA girls’s basketball national championship.
Vanessa Bryant paid tribute to her daughter whereas congratulating Auriemma and Connecticut on her Instagram Stories.
“Gigi would’ve loved being there with you,” Bryant wrote on a post that included a graphic commemorating the Huskies’ first title since 2016. “‘When you think you can’t, UCONN’ — Gianna Bryant.”
Vanessa Bryant added a coronary heart emoji and wrote, “Congratulations.”
Kobe Bryant mentioned in 2019 that daughter Gianna was “hell-bent” on enjoying school basketball at Connecticut.
(Jessica Hill / Associated Press)
Gianna shared her father’s ardour for basketball and appeared to have inherited his expertise as properly. The NBA great had high reward for his daughter’s skills on the court docket.
“This one,” he mentioned, pointing to Gigi in 2019, “she’s something else.”
Kobe Bryant coached Gianna’s membership basketball group. They have been on the best way to a match on the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks on the time of the accident.
At Vanessa Bryant’s request, Auriemma spoke on the public memorial service held for Kobe and Gianna on Feb. 24, 2020, at Staples Center. He talked about the primary time Gianna visited the UConn locker room.
“The look on her face,” Auriemma mentioned. “The smile, the way her eyes just took everything in, how excited she was to be around, in her mind, royalty. …
“And the most impressive thing about that point in time was how Kobe stepped as far back as he could. So anyone taking pictures, anyone there would not know that this was Kobe Bryant’s daughter. This was her moment. This was her time to shine. This was her time to experience all the things that he’s experienced in his life. He was being dad then; he wasn’t being Kobe Bryant. And he was allowing Gigi to be Gigi and not Kobe Bryant’s daughter.”
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