It's not unusual for UConn's star players to be finalists or semifinalists for major basketball awards at this time of the year.

Right on cue, Gabby Williams and Katie Lou Samuelson joined Louisville's Asia Durr and A'ja Wilson of South Carolina as finalists for the Naismith Trophy.

The accolades were not done for Williams who recently was named one of the semifinalists for the Sullivan Award which is presented annually to the nation's premier amateur athlete.

Williams and Wilson are the only women's basketball players to make the list. Since 2000 the only women's basketball player to win the honor was UConn legend Breanna Stewart, who shared the award with Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds in 2015.

"I am not one to focus on individual awards but of course it is a huge honor. I grew up in the AAU world with basketball and track so it is (exciting)."

REMEMBER ME?There may be just a few people affiliated with the Central PA Elite AAU program checking out tomorrow's UConn/Saint Francis game.

UConn sophomore forward Kyla Irwin and Saint Francis freshman guard Karson Swogger were teammates on the AAU team coached by Tina Klotzbeecher-Thomas, the mother of Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas, and Irwin's mom Bethany, a former star at Branford High School. Red Flash freshman guard/forward Haley Thomas also played in the highly successful program but was never a teammate with Irwin.

"I first met Karson back in seventh or eighth grade and I played with her my last year, my junior year so it was a lot of fun," Irwin said. "I got to know her family so I am really excited to see them

"I think it will be exciting because there will be a lot of familiar faces on the team so it will be a cool experience."

Swogger has nothing but positive memories of her time as Irwin's teammate.

"Just how good she was and how much fun she was the play with," Swogger said. "It is going to be different playing with her and not against her.

"A lot of people are tweeting out good luck. It is always nice, I think people are excited to see us on the court together. She was great and Kyla's mom was the assistant so to have those two was amazing, they definitely pushed me and made me better. Alyssa Thomas, she came to one of our practices. Just to see her and she played with us for a little bit, it was a great experience.

"She (Bethany Irwin) is just like Kyla, she has a lot of energy and always bringing 100 percent effort.

"It is going to be fun. It is hard to beat them, they are 32-0 but to get to play them is awesome and not a lot of people can say that."

Thomas and Swogger are the only Saint Francis players not to start any games who average more than 10 minutes per game so they could both play significant roles against No. 1 UConn.

"I know my family and friends are all rooting for us, everybody around the school is super excited and supportive of us," Thomas said.

Much of the attention will be focused on Saint Francis' leading scorer Jessica Kovatch, the No. 2 scorer in NCAA Division I women's basketball play this season.

"It is obviously her scoring but I think her intensity really helps us because she gets everyone fired up and that is what is really important to us," Thomas said. "We are a very emotional team, we play emotional so whenever she gets going, it gets everybody else going."

Kovatch, who leads all Division I women's basketball player with 141 3-pointers, admits that emotion plays a huge role in how she plays.

"I am an emotional player, if any play happens I show my emotion a lot and it gets my teammates fired up," Kovatch said.

You will find some big time names on the list of top recruits in the class that Kovatch played in but none of them have scored more points than the 5-foot-9 native of Philipsburg, N.J. Even she is surprised as just how many points she has scored (the number is currently at 2,150 points) especially earlier in her career.

"I am used to playing a lot of minutes and scoring is easy in high school but when you come to college it is always different," Kovatch said. "Coming in I didn't think I'd be a starter or a leading scorer for the team but when I was embraced with that role because Coach Joe (Haigh) would come up to me and tell me (to score), giving me confidence as a freshman. It is a good role, I like it, my teammates give me the ball when I am open. We move the ball a lot but coming into Saint Francis, I didn't see myself being that go-to scorer."

ALONE AT THE TOPThis is the 25th tournament with a 64-team field and UConn is the only team to win in the first round in each tournament since it expanded to 64 teams in 1994.

Here's the list of the top win-loss marks since the tournament moved to 64 teams (not including today's games)

UConn 24-0
Duke 22-0
Tennessee 23-1
Stanford 22-2
Purdue 20-2
Notre Dame 20-3