Vanessa Bryant shows love to late daughter Gigi Bryant’s favorite school after national championship win

Kobe Bryant's daughter Gianna 'Gigi' Bryant was a big fan of the UConn Huskies and was on track to play for them.

Vanessa Bryant shows love to late daughter Gigi Bryant’s favorite school after national championship win

Gigi Bryant could have been Paige Bueckers' teammate at UConn

Paige Bueckers and UConn went on to win the NCAA National Championship in the final game of her illustrious college career. The road to the win has been slow and steady and littered with a lot of question marks, but she led her Huskies to cross the finish line.

Bueckers leaves college after five seasons in Storrs, Connecticut. She could have left college last season as a senior, but her desire to win the national championship saw her committing to another year. All season long she has led the team in both offense and overall defense.

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She kept that same momentum in March Madness and into the Elite Eight and Final Four games. Tonight, Bueckers was not UConn’s highest scorer, but her defense along with the seventeen points helped blow the reigning national champion South Carolina Gamecocks out of the building.

Last season, a controversial call in their Final Four game handed victory to Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes. Their performance in this game showed the Huskies were not taking any chances. After watching the Huskies win, the late great Kobe Bryant‘s widow, Vanessa Bryant shared this message on Instagram.

Gigi would’ve loved being there with you. ‘When you think you can’t, UConn’ – Gianna Bryant. Congratulations.

Vanessa Bryant
Vanessa Bryant's message to UConn
Vanessa Bryant’s message to UConn (Image via SS/IG)

Her message was an ode to her late daughter Gianna ‘Gigi’ Bryant. Gigi Bryant was a big fan of the UConn Huskies and was likely on her way to being a Husky freshman this season. Had that happened, she would have joined her illustrious father as champions in the family.

Paige Bueckers believes Kobe and Gigi Bryant were there for them

After winning the national championship, Paige Bueckers made it to the post-game media session. With the championship winning net around her neck, she replied to a reporter’s question about the possibility of Gigi Bryant being on this championship winning UConn Huskies team.

There have been times this whole weekend and throughout the whole tournament that God has really shown himself and my mom staying in room 824, both of Kobe’s numbers. I feel like a lot of that too is Kobe’s watching over us, Gigi’s watching over us. God’s presence has been really showing out.

Paige Bueckers said

With all the things happening around her, Bueckers believes Kobe Bryant and his UConn loving daughter Gigi Bryant were there in spirit. Their presence helped the Huskies dominate South Carolina to win it all. It could have been with Gigi Bryant on the squad, but understands life chose differently.

Gigi Bryant could have been on NCAA championship winning UConn squad

Gianna ‘Gigi’ Bryant was born in the year 2006. That means, this year, she would have been 18 years old. From early on her interest in basketball led to her father Kobe Bryant, coaching her up. She was called ‘Mambacita’ and had the skills to be good.

She worked out with WNBA superstar Sabrina Ionescu in the offseason. Then she was part of training camps with good coaches and even UConn head coach Geno Auriemma observed her in one of those camps. Knowing how hard her father will push her, Auriemma understood what he was getting in Gigi Bryant.

Add to that she was a Huskies fan and if rumors were to be true, there was a good chance she committed to the Huskies. If that happened, she would have been a freshman on this UConn Huskies team. Gigi Bryant would have been a national champion, joining her father to be champions in the family.