Hartford — Last summer, Christyn Williams had surgery on her left elbow — the shooting arm for the left-handed Williams — and spent the second half of her summer rehabbing it, at first using only her right arm to go through basketball drills before being able to incorporate the left again.

When the 2021-22 season arrived, her senior year as a member of the UConn women's basketball team, that was supposed to be the fun part for the team that has been to 13 straight Final Fours and constantly have what they call "unfinished business" on their minds.

"That is what I thought," Williams said, asked if the season was supposed to be the easy part. "Life said something different, which is fine. We're over that hump now and I think we're better from it. Sometimes you have to go through stuff to be better on the other side."

No. 7 UConn (21-5 overall, 15-1 Big East) will celebrate Senior Day in its regular-season finale Sunday against Providence at Gampel Pavilion (2 p.m., CBSSN), following a season which has been tempered by adversity.

Eight of UConn's 12 players missed two or more games due to illness or injury, rendering nine different starting lineups. Reigning national player of the year Paige Bueckers missed 19 games, returning just Friday night against St. John's. And suddenly the seniors, who were also the leaders of the team last year as juniors, mentoring seven freshmen, were just as important as role models for yet another season.

Williams, along with Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Evina Westbrook and Dorka Juhasz, all 1,000-point scorers in their careers, will be honored prior to the Providence game, with the ceremony scheduled to begin at 1:30. Juhasz, a graduate transfer from Ohio State, has not decided whether to stay at UConn for her final season of eligibility next year but will participate in Senior Day.

"I think (our role as leaders has) developed a lot over the year just based off the adversity we faced," Nelson-Ododa said this week. "I mean, this is a pretty uncharacteristic season for UConn. A lot of the stuff we faced this season I've never seen the past four years so we definitely had to step outside our comfort zone and just figure out a lot of things in order just to lead our team and come out with wins. It really has turned into something that we didn't even think we'd have to do."

UConn coach Geno Auriemma called the senior class "vanilla," as in steady, not boring.

"They don't get real high on things and they don't get real low on things, so I think them being like that has kind of made it a lot easier for everybody else to kind of look at them and go 'They're not worried,'" Auriemma said. "I mean, they might have been but they didn't show it. I think their disposition and their demeanor, without even saying anything, probably made a big difference for the younger guys."

Sophomore Aaliyah Edwards said even though she's no longer a freshman, she continues to ask questions of the team's elder statesmen.

"Oh, all the time, yes," Edwards said. "The seniors, they play a big role in the development and just getting acclimated with the team. As a freshman, first year in college and especially college basketball, it's a huge and different atmosphere. To look up to them is great and comforting but also being a sophomore now and having freshmen underneath us, we still look up to the seniors."

Williams is from Little Rock, Arkansas; Nelson-Ododa from Winder, Georgia; Westbrook from Salem, Oregon; and Juhasz from Pecs, Hungary.

Upon finding out her parents wouldn't be able to attend the Senior Day ceremony, Juhasz said her teammates informed her that they would walk to center court with her.

"I might be walking out with the whole team," Juhasz said. "They just welcomed me so quick and they were so happy that I'm here. It's really like being part of a family. Obviously I had a different team but I came and I just felt love from them right away."

Said Westbrook: "Everything that happened is stuff that we can't even make up. Like really, from our bus breaking down to just crazy things you can't even imagine. (As seniors), we knew we had a big responsibility, bigger than normal ... I think we all kind of knew we really had to step up and just make sure everything was good on and off the court."

v.fulkerson@theday.com