At UConn, Freshman’s Jersey Fits Her Just Fine

Maybe Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis had a little nerve for asking to wear the No. 23 jersey at Connecticut only months after Maya Moore, the four-time, first-team all-American, was done with it. But No. 23 has been Mosqueda-Lewis’s number, too.
It was my number in high school,” she said with a polite smile. “Actually, it was my number from seventh grade on.”

When Mosqueda-Lewis, a 6-foot freshman forward from Anaheim Hills, Calif., pulls on the jersey and pulls her hair back into a bun, she bears a resemblance to Moore, who scored 3,036 points at UConn as she led the Huskies to two national championships and a 90-game winning streak.

Although her role is different from Moore’s — Mosqueda-Lewis has come off the bench in all but one game this season — she has made key contributions for the Huskies (31-4), who moved on in the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament Monday by beating Kansas State, 72-26.

Mosqueda-Lewis made 6 of 12 shots and scored 15 points to help the Huskies, the top seed in the Kingston (R.I.) Region, reach the Round of 16 for the 19th straight season. UConn rolled to a 38-10 halftime lead and held Kansas State (20-14) to the fewest points in the history of the women’s tournament. Southern scored 27 points in a 2006 loss to Duke.

“From the beginning of the year, she’s gotten 10 times better,” said Stefanie Dolson, UConn’s sophomore center. “She’s done other things than score — she’s rebounding, getting steals and playing good defense.”

Mosqueda-Lewis has stood out in her first postseason. She was named the outstanding player in the Big East tournament, and she scored 21 points in her first N.C.A.A. game, an 83-47 victory over Prairie View A&M on Saturday.

She has already broken one of Moore’s records: most 3-pointers as a freshman, passing Moore’s record of 73 on the next-to-last game of the regular season. In the 10 games before Monday, Mosqueda-Lewis scored 184 points; no one else had more than 129.

“I find myself, when I put her in the game, I almost hardly ever want to take her out, so she ends up playing a lot of minutes, even though she doesn’t start,” UConn Coach Geno Auriemma said Saturday. “That’s a byproduct of the confidence I and the other coaches have in her.”

Without offensive forces like Moore and Tina Charles, the Huskies have had to become more solid on defense. They allow only 45.7 points per game, and opponents shoot only 30 percent from the field.

Mosqueda-Lewis is not just expected to pop off the bench and score a lot. She has been expected to blend in. Mosqueda-Lewis is the fifth national high school player of the year to continue her career at UConn. (Moore, Charles, Tamika Williams and Ann Strother were the others.)

“You learn to deal with it,” Bria Hartley, the sophomore guard who had 16 points Monday, said of fitting into a program with other high school standouts. “The upperclassmen will keep on her, telling her to keep working when she’s tired. She has a great attitude, which is great for us.”

Mosqueda-Lewis averaged 21.7 points as a senior and led Mater Dei High School to its second straight California state championship. She visited Connecticut for the first time after her junior year and liked the atmosphere.

She said she never considered colleges closer to home, saying, “I didn’t really want to stay home, and it wasn’t a big deal to go cross-country.”

Mosqueda-Lewis, Dolson and Hartley were members of the United States team that won a gold medal last summer at the under-19 world championships in Chile. Mosqueda-Lewis scored 15 points in 24 minutes to lead the United States to an easy victory in the championship game.

In her first game at UConn, Mosqueda-Lewis scored 7 points. Then she had 25 points apiece in victories over Pacific and Stanford, one of the other No. 1 regional seeds in the tournament, and never encountered a slump the rest of the regular season.

“I see a lot of Maya in her sometimes,” said Tiffany Hayes, the Huskies’ senior guard. “She’s definitely been a big spark whenever she comes in.”

Hayes paused, then said, “When she comes in, she’s one of the biggest sparks ever.”

Mosqueda-Lewis is still very much the quiet freshman, except when news conference moderators pronounce her last name like “mosquito.” (It is mos-KEHD-uh.) She chuckles then.

What she is not is another Maya Moore, Dolson said. Mosqueda-Lewis is making her own way, one 3-pointer or rebound at a time.

“She’s not known as No. 23 here; she’s known as Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis,” Dolson said, pronouncing her last name correctly.