{"id":43660,"date":"2025-04-07T14:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T18:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=43660"},"modified":"2025-04-07T14:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T18:36:09","slug":"vanessa-bryant-celebrates-uconn-title-gigi-wouldve-loved-being-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/04\/vanessa-bryant-celebrates-uconn-title-gigi-wouldve-loved-being-there.html","title":{"rendered":"Vanessa Bryant Celebrates UConn Title: &#8216;Gigi Would&#8217;ve Loved Being There&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_43663\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43663\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/04\/UConn-champion_credit-UConn-Womens-Basketball-X-Inset-vanessabryant-Instagram.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43663\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/04\/UConn-champion_credit-UConn-Womens-Basketball-X-Inset-vanessabryant-Instagram.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-43663\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UConn Women&#8217;s Basketball \/ X | Inset: @vanessabryant \/ Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>UConn is a national champion once again, and perhaps nobody was more proud of the new title than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/people\/vanessa-bryant\/\">Vanessa Bryant<\/a>\u00a0&#8212; whose daughter,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/people\/gianna-bryant\/\">Gianna<\/a>, absolutely adored the Huskies.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/people\/kobe-bryant\/\">Kobe<\/a>&#8216;s wife took to her Instagram page to congratulate\u00a0Geno Auriemma\u00a0and Co. after they destroyed South Carolina, 82-59, on Sunday in Tampa &#8230; and wrote that Gigi would&#8217;ve been so happy with the way the women&#8217;s basketball team hoisted yet another NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n<section id=\"cb-19b1d1229d72ef39d3dadea23602d62a\" class=\"canvas-block canvas-block-permalink canvas-text-block canvas-text-block-permalink canvas-text-block--default \" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;text_block&quot;}\">&#8220;Gigi would&#8217;ve loved being there with you,&#8221; she said &#8230; before adding a quote from Gianna that read, &#8220;When you think you can&#8217;t, UCONN.&#8221;<\/section>\n<section data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;text_block&quot;}\"><\/section>\n<section id=\"cb-3844c005e4aaa735e594100ba0f65f26\" class=\"canvas-block canvas-block-permalink canvas-text-block canvas-text-block-permalink canvas-text-block--default \" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;text_block&quot;}\">She put down two emojis as well &#8212; a broken heart one and full heart one.UConn, of course, is where many believe Gigi would&#8217;ve ended up if not for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2020\/01\/26\/kobe-bryant-killed-dead-helicopter-crash-in-calabasas\/\">the 2020 helicopter crash<\/a>\u00a0that tragically took her and Kobe&#8217;s lives &#8230; as her NBA legend father once said she was &#8220;hellbent on&#8221; attending the university.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Mambacita is forever a Husky ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3wdAbdK0Ye\">pic.twitter.com\/3wdAbdK0Ye<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 UConn Women\u2019s Basketball (@UConnWBB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UConnWBB\/status\/1221941905531002880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In fact, after she passed away at 13 years old, UConn left a customized No. 2 jersey for her on one of their bench chairs &#8230; and captioned a photo of it, &#8220;Mambacita is forever a Husky.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Huskies&#8217; title was their 12th &#8230; but their first in the last nine years.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2025\/04\/07\/vanessa-bryant-celebrates-uconn-title\/#continued\">TMZ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UConn is a national champion once again, and perhaps nobody was more proud of the new title than\u00a0Vanessa Bryant\u00a0&#8212; whose daughter,\u00a0Gianna, absolutely adored the Huskies. Kobe&#8216;s wife took to her Instagram page to congratulate\u00a0Geno Auriemma\u00a0and Co. after they destroyed South Carolina, 82-59, on Sunday in Tampa &#8230; and wrote that Gigi would&#8217;ve been so happy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":43663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vanessa Bryant Celebrates UConn Title: &#039;Gigi Would&#039;ve Loved Being There&#039;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"UConn is a national champion once again, and perhaps nobody was more proud of the new title than\u00a0Vanessa Bryant whose daughter,\u00a0Gianna, 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