Hugs have to come later for Georgia star Gabby Connally

No hugging. That’s the biggest issue at the moment.

That, and tickets. The Connallys are trying to come up with as many seats as possible for Monday’s limited-access, NCAA Tournament first-round game between the Lady Bulldogs of Georgia and Drexel in San Antonio.

But no hugging?

There’s no remedy for that. That won’t get resolved until the Lady Bulldogs’ run is complete. And the paradox is that both Georgia guard Gabby Connally and her family hope that’s a long, long time away. At least two weeks, anyway, until the national championship game has concluded in the Alamodome on April 4.

Milton Connally said he’ll gladly wait until then to hug his daughter.

“Once the tournament is over for Georgia, we’ll get to hug her then,” said the father the Lady Bulldogs’ star point guard. “She’ll be able to stay home with us after that. Hopefully they’ll have a long run before then. That’s what we’re hoping.”

The Lady Bulldogs’ participation in the women’s tournament as a No. 3 seed is special for everyone involved, but none more than the Connally family. While they are kind of from everywhere – they’re a military family of the first order, with both mom and dad serving long, distinguished careers – San Antonio is where they have settled and spent most of their lives, at least of late.

Milton Connally retired as a command sergeant major in the U.S. Army a few years back. Tina Connally retired as an Army colonel a short time later and now is working in the private sector in San Antonio.

The family has known for a while that the Final Four was going to be played in their backyard in 2021, which is Gabby’s senior season at Georgia. But they had no way of knowing that the coronavirus pandemic would make their hometown the venue for the entirety of the tournament.

As it turned out, No. 10-ranked Georgia (20-6) will be playing Drexel (14-8) in the first round Monday at St. Mary’s University’s Bill Greehey Arena. That’s just 11 miles south of Brandeis High, where Connally made a name for herself before signing with UGA.

Talk about a serendipitous stroke.

“There are no words for it,” said Connally, who has started 86 of Georgia’s 87 games over the last three years. “Just the way it all happened is really crazy. Obviously, I’m super excited to be heading back home. … It’s just so uplifting.”

The hope, of course, is that the Lady Bulldogs will end up down the road at the Alamodome. With the decision for the entire tournament to be competed in one city, like the NCAA is doing with the men’s tournament in Indianapolis, participants are having to fan out to five different sites around town to be able to conduct all 48 games of the first two rounds.

By the round of 16, all games will be played inside the Alamodome. The Lady Bulldogs plan to still be in action then.

“We want to bring it home,” Connally said before Georgia left for San Antonio Wednesday. “I know I keep saying it -- so maybe the more I say it the more positive vibes get put in the air -- but we want to win a national championship.”

Bringing it home

The Lady Bulldogs have never done that, by the way. They’ve come close. They’ve been to the Final Four five times. But not since 1999. And Georgia has not gotten past the Elite Eight since 2013, when coach Joni Taylor was still an assistant for the legendary Andy Landers.

So, from the jump, there was no guarantee that Connally and the Lady Bulldogs would get to San Antonio this year. Getting a three-week visit would be an unimaginable bonus.

“We’re so proud of the entire team,” Milton Connally said. “You just never know, but at the beginning of the year I was telling Gabby, ‘I think y’all have an opportunity to have a really good season.’ As the season was rolling along, you could see that Gabby and all the girls, they began to believe they can be really good. This team now believes that they are what they can be.”

Gabby Connally is a big reason for that. She’s one of four senior starters and three graduates on an upperclassman-run team. She’s the consummate heady player and has “a good stroke.” While she mans the point most of the time, she has developed into the ultimate 3-point specialist. She’s the first player since Mary Beth Lycett to make five or more 3-pointers in back-to-back SEC games, which she did with six at Missouri and five vs. Tennessee. Also, her long jumper with .08 seconds remaining beat Arkansas this season.

Heading into the tournament, Connally leads the Lady Bulldogs in minutes played (29.7), 3-pointers made (51), 3-point shooting (.398) and free throw percentage (.878). She’s also second on the team with 14 double-figure games, including four of 20 or more.

That’s just her on-court work. Connally graduated in May with a 3.67 GPA in criminal justice. She has been doing graduate work in public administration since.

Connally’s career ambition is not to play in the WNBA, but to work for the U.S. Secret Service. She is scheduled to be interviewed by the Secret Service in San Antonio right after the tournament.

But all that can wait. Taylor recruited Connally exactly for the moment that awaits her – playing the point for the Lady Bulldogs on a national stage.

Taylor acquired that vision for Connally quite by accident. Taylor actually was still an assistant coach under Andy Landers and was in San Antonio to recruit another player when she noticed a “little girl” one court over dropping shot after shot on her opponents off of ball screens set by her teammates.

“I was like ‘who is she?’” Taylor recalled. “So, I got up from the game I was watching to go watch Gabby. Then I found out that she played for Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil.”

Davis-Wrightsil is a women’s basketball Hall of Famer and former All-American for Texas who Taylor has known a long time. That instantly told Taylor that Connally was going to be well-coached and coached hard.

“I knew then that Gabby was going to be tough and was going to be prepared for a scouting report, and she was going to be able to come in and play immediately and be a really good point guard for us,” Taylor said. “I got a lot of things answered in a short amount of time, and then we just started the recruiting process from there.”

Connally’s basketball career continued to blossom from there and she became a national recruit. She included Georgia in her top five schools, but told her father she wasn’t going to commit to any of them until she completed all her visits.

Far away from home

Georgia was her fourth trip. But the city, the university, the basketball program -- and, yes, a Saturday football game at Sanford Stadium – blew her away. Gabby raved to her parents about how much fun she had and how much she loved Taylor.

Milton Connally gently reminded his giddy daughter before they left Sunday morning about her self-proclaimed wait-to-see-them-all policy.

“Next thing I know, they’re there to take us to the airport and Gabby asks Coach, ‘if I committed today, could you promise me that you’ll be here the next four years?’” Milton Connally said with a laugh. “Joni says, ‘Well, I don’t plan on leaving here for a long time.’ Gabby said, ‘With that said, I commit.’ All the coaches start going crazy, Joni was pregnant at the time and she’s jumping, Chelsea (Newton) is crying. I wish I’d had video going or something, but I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

Georgia guard Gabby Connally (second from left) poses for a picture with her family last week. They are (L-R) her brother Matthew, mother Tina and father Milton. (Family photo)

Connally has been surprising her family and teammates ever since. No one ever knows what hairdo she might decide to sport from one game to the next.

Meanwhile, her relationship with Taylor has only strengthened since that emotional visit almost five years ago.

“I am sure I have been hard on her,” Taylor said. “As a point guard there is a different expectation, there’s a different level of responsibility, that I place on that position. I knew that she was someone who could handle it. For her to not flinch when I am just on her, on her, on her, speaks to her resilience and her toughness. And she hits big shot after big shot after big shot.”

The hardest thing about Connally’s choice of college is that it took her so far from home. Because they’re a military family and have had to move around so much, the Connallys probably are closer than most. They still managed to make it to about half of Gabby’s games, but that it only left them longing for more.

Now at least they know they can catch every single one remaining. They hope and pray that’s five.

Tickets already have been procured for Milton, Tina and Gabby’s older brother, Matthew, who secured leave from the Coast Guard to come home for the show. The issue now is the dozens of other family members and friends who want watch Gabby live out her dream.

Meanwhile, the hugging can wait.

“We’re going to abide by that 100 percent,” said Milton, no stranger to taking or giving orders. “The coaches let them keep their phones for this trip, so we’ll be able to talk to her for this trip. But we’re even going to limit that as much as possible. We don’t want to distract her at all.”