Sarah Strong was only a few months removed from winning a national championship when reality hit her during the 2025 FIBA 3×3 World Cup.
The U.S. had been cooking its opponents all tournament. Twelfth-ranked Mongolia in the quarterfinals wasn’t supposed to stand a chance against the U.S., the clear favorite.
But roughly 23 minutes later, Strong and her teammates converged into a huddle, stunned by what had just happened. The U.S. let its guard down, underestimated its opponent and paid the ultimate price, falling 18-15.
The FIBA stream broadcaster on YouTube called it the “biggest upset in Mongolian sports history.”
“I hate they lost 3×3,” Strong’s mother, Allison Feaster, told The Post last week. “But it’s also … losing and coming up short are powerful teaching moments.”
That defeat was a reminder that no one is untouchable and that a team can’t afford to take an opponent lightly. It’s a lesson that should be applied to the college season for Strong, who’s poised to play a big role in UConn’s hopes of repeating as champions.
“That’s the beauty of college basketball: Anything can happen in a game, and they have a target on their back,” said Feaster, the Boston Celtics vice president of team operations and organizational growth. “We lived it in our organization, and teams are gunning for the champs. They got to be ready every single night.”
Playing for the UConn women’s basketball team already comes with a layer of baked-in pressure.
It’s doubled this season since the Huskies are the reigning champions.
And then there’s Strong, who’s shouldering magnified levels of individual expectations entering her sophomore season.
Strong is widely considered one of the nation’s best players. Some even speculate the 6-foot-2 forward could be the second coming of Maya Moore.
Strong doesn’t mind the comparison. She doesn’t see it as pressure, either.
If anything, it’s more of a challenge she intends to conquer.
“I kind of enjoy it,” she said at Big East media day last week. “That’s why I came to UConn.”
Perhaps no one is more excited to see what Strong does this season than coach Geno Auriemma.
“She was really, really good last year, and I think she’s even better,” Auriemma told Hearst Connecticut Media. “… She just looks like a different person, and at the same time, her game is a whole other level from last year. There isn’t a day that goes by that one of the coaches and I just kind of look at each other and go, ‘Phew, man.’ It’s just something about her right now. I can’t wait.”
‘Control what you can control’
Strong has an unassuming swagger to her. She’s a silent killer with a nonchalant confidence that rubs off on her teammates.
Her skill set is off the charts already at 19 years old. But her poise under pressure might be one of her best traits.
“You would never be able to tell [by] looking at her [last season] if it was a good game, bad game, OK game, which I thought was so impressive,” senior guard Azzi Fudd said. “ So she’s someone who handles things tremendously well. I feel like I should be taking notes from her.”
Strong gets her chill demeanor from her laid-back parents. Feaster and her mother would always stress to Strong not to “get too high off the highs and too low off the lows.”
“Control what you can control,” Feaster said. “And the rest is really out of your hands.”
The words run through her veins. It’s subconscious at this point.
So Feaster shouldn’t have been surprised that Strong didn’t seem fazed by the Final Four stage.
Instead, under the college game’s brightest lights, Strong struck for a combined 46 points and 23 rebounds in UConn’s final two games in Tampa. She set a March Madness record for most points scored in the tournament by a freshman with 114.
Still, Feaster couldn’t help but be in “awe” of her daughter’s mental fortitude.
“The regular season, the lights aren’t as bright, [but] as you progress in the tournament, the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight and then the Final Four, you just never know with a young player who’s not as experienced,” Feaster said.
But Strong appeared to handle it all with ease.
Big play after big play after big play, she delivered. Whether it be scoring or blocking shots, Strong never got too high.
When the inevitable mistake happened, she remained even-keeled.
Of course, it helped having Paige Bueckers there to help Strong navigate the mental gymnastics of the high-stakes moment.
But with Bueckers gone, Strong is being asked to step up as a leader and she’s learning to be comfortable with speaking out.
“Sarah is a lot more confident,” Fudd said. “She’s always been confident, but you can see it in the way she’s been talking more. She’s more vocal. Before, you could tell she would want to say something, but she didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. She would just listen and observe, and this year, she would talk.”
‘Moore’ to come
While most parents view their kids’ capabilities through rose-colored glasses, Feaster didn’t need eyewear to spot just how special her daughter was from a young age.
Her up-the-floor heaves and one-arm passes while seeing the floor was unmatched for a person younger than 10 when she was playing in Spain.
“You could tell she had skill at that age. You just don’t know if the work ethic is gonna accompany that,” Feaster said. “And it did, and she kept getting better and better.”
The Moore comparisons initially started when Strong was young because Feaster’s friends thought her daughter somewhat resembled the Hall of Famer.
But hearing her daughter mentioned in the same sentence as Moore from a basketball standpoint now is thrilling.
“I love it. I’ve always been a fan of Maya Moore,” said Feaster, who played with Moore in Spain. “To be compared to Maya Moore in any capacity is the highest honor. She’s got to match Maya Moore’s dog. Maya Moore has that dog factor, and so it’s a tremendous honor.”
When Strong wasn’t playing 3×3 this offseason, she was working on her shooting with her father, Danny Strong, and working out alongside players like Ice Brady.
Strong is just scratching the surface of her capabilities.
“The way she walks on the floor, you can tell she’s just owning her space,” Fudd said. “And I love it.”
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