Storrs — Of the national championship women’s basketball teams being honored by UConn on Saturday, the 2003 and 2004 teams won titles to cap a run of three straight, while the 2013 and 2014 teams were just getting started on an unprecedented four in a row.

Former All-American Diana Taurasi was the architect of the 2003-04 teams, a junior and senior on teams with underclassmen, while fellow star Breanna Stewart led the Huskies to four straight championships in her career beginning in 2013.

Both were in attendance at Gampel Pavilion for No. 8 UConn’s matchup with No. 15 Notre Dame, a UConn rival throughout both championship runs.

“One team kinda had to figure it out and grow and everything that could go right had to go right,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said this week by way of reminiscing. “And then the ’13-14 team, it didn’t matter if it went right or wrong; they were just so damn talented and so good.

“They each got it done their own way and they all have a lot of great memories.”

Auriemma laughed before adding:

“It’s probably the only time that the 2003 and 2004 teams, especially D (Taurasi) and Maria (Conlon) and Ash (Battle) and Jessica Moore and probably forgetting some people ... that they come back and people look down on their three championships as no big deal.”

Same jokes, same joy

Stonington graduate Heather (Buck) Bennett, a former two-time Gatorade Connecticut Player of the Year for the Bears, made five trips to the Final Four with the UConn women’s basketball team, a part of three national championship squads.

She was a senior on the 2013 team, Stewart’s freshman year, and is happily a part of this weekend’s celebration in Storrs.

“It’s such an amazing opportunity to spend time with our old teammates who truly are lifelong friends,” Bennett said. “It’s always great to get back together with the girls we played with no matter the occasion.

“We get to reminisce and fall into the same jokes and joy that we shared in college.”

Bennett also grew up as a staunch UConn fan, meaning that the players from the Taurasi era were her idols.

“To be so lucky to share this time with the older team from 2003 and 2004 is incredible,” she said, “because at least, for me, the girls on those teams were a huge inspiration for me as a young player. I looked up to all of them as I was learning to play basketball and continue to look up to them now.”

More than 20 players from the two different eras, celebrating the 20th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of their championships, were set to be on hand for UConn-Notre Dame. A dinner was scheduled with the current team on Friday night.

UConn senior forward Aaliyah Edwards said she was looking forward to spending time with the alumnae and asking them questions about the past — “I’m excited to hear some CD stories,” Edwards said of assistant coach Chris Dailey. “I’ve told her I’m gonna be fishing.”

Said Bennett: “As a collective group, we have this opportunity to look back but also to look to the future and share our support for the current team as two of the perennial greats battle.”

Quotable

Auriemma made it clear that despite some of the barbs he’s traded over the seasons with former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw — and late Tennessee coach Pat Summitt before that — no rivalry should ever be personal.

“That’s the easiest way to kill a rivalry, if you make it personal,” Auriemma said. “I don’t know that that’s the case a lot of times in other sports, maybe because the coaches don’t stay there for as long as Pat and I were here and Muffet and I were here. So it does kind of get to that point.

“I think other places, coaches change, so it becomes ‘UConn-Tennessee’ and ‘UConn-Notre Dame.’ It doesn’t become ‘him vs. her’ and ‘her vs. him.’ That’s the part I think kills rivalries.

“It may have been fun at one time, but it lost its humor a long time ago.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com