Fresh off elbow surgery, Christyn Williams eager for redemption, consistency as senior leader on UConn women’s basketball team

Christyn Williams has always been a person who wears her heart on her sleeve. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to hear her describe her offseason in a YouTube video series she released earlier this fall called “Redemption Summer.”

The UConn senior, a 5-foot-11 guard from Little Rock, Arkansas, had a tumultuous junior year in which her confidence struggles led to her disappearing at times on the court. Though she had a tremendous postseason, the team’s Final Four loss to Arizona left a bad taste in her mouth as a national title evaded the Huskies yet again.

Add in a midsummer elbow surgery and Williams returns to Storrs for her final year eager as ever to see that the Huskies finish on top, as she said in July.

Williams came to Storrs ranked No. 1 in the Class of 2018, having won Gatorade National Player of the Year. While she got off to a good start and had a strong postseason as a freshman, much of her sophomore and junior years were defined by inconsistency.

But in March, Williams finally “realized how to play to her potential and to who she is,” as coach Geno Auriemma put it during the Big East Tournament. Emerging as a two-way player tasked with guarding an opponent’s best, Williams was able to unlock her offensive game. She was ultimately the team’s second-leading scorer at 16.3 points per game on 47.9 percent shooting, but just 34.3 percent from the arc.

Williams doesn’t want to use it as an excuse, but she was dealing with something in the second half of the season that, while not public at the time, was impacting her game. She was playing through a nerve issue in her left elbow, her shooting arm.

“It was a nerve thing so it would come and go. It was really weird,” Williams said Friday, describing the sensation as a sharp pain. “The doctor told me it’s usually a baseball injury, so I don’t know how the heck I got it. But it started really, really bothering me consistently in January. I’m not going to use that as an excuse for my shooting percentage, whatever, things happen. I think my shooting was mental anyway.”

Williams got through the season and summer session in Storrs before undergoing an ulnar nerve transposition and scope in the back of her elbow on July 8. Williams’ “Redemption Summer” documentary showed her sister, a physical therapist, helping her rehab back home.

Now beginning preseason workouts in Storrs, Williams said she’s feeling 100 percent.

“I’m so glad that I did it,” Williams said. “It wasn’t a very invasive surgery and I’m back. It was two months of recovery so it was perfect timing.”

If she is able to build off the end to her junior season, where she averaged 16.9 points in her final 10 games and had three 20-plus-point games to conclude the NCAA Tournament, she and the Huskies should be in good shape.

“Just be more consistent, just trying to keep my momentum from the tournament last year, and hopefully I’m better now than I was then,” Williams said of her goals. “They need me to be the player that I was during the tournament, and that is just doing anything that I can do for my team, whether that’s defensively or offensively.”

Auriemma saw that determination earlier this summer.

“I think Christyn came out of that NCAA Tournament with a different mindset,” he said, “and this has been probably the hardest I’ve seen her go in all the time she’s been here.”

“She’s definitely been putting in time, especially over the summer,” teammate Evina Westbrook said. “Just getting her mind right, I think that was the biggest thing for her throughout the year last year. Especially her going home, she loves being home, she loves being around her family, loves being around the right people, especially us and just being around a team more, I think, has really helped her. But she’s definitely going to take her game to another level.”

Williams is also more settled in her role. At the beginning of last year she was trying to rebound from a tough sophomore season and admitted she was nervous about needing to lead such a freshmen-heavy squad.

This year, though, she’s a year older and knows what’s expected and how deliver it.

“[Being a senior] has been a long time coming,” Williams said. “I finally feel like a leader leader because I’m a senior. I mean obviously we were leaders last year, too, but we were juniors. But now that we’re seniors, it’s just surreal. We’re just going to try to continue to do what we were doing last year, lead by example, communicate heavily, and the younger guys do a great job of following our lead.”

If all goes according to plan it will allow Williams to go out with her best season, a national title and her quest for redemption fulfilled.

Alexa Philippou can be reached at aphilippou@courant.com