The UConn women’s basketball team landed its third commitment in the Class of 2025 on Wednesday from Blanca Quinonez, a 6-foot forward from Ecuador.
At 18 years old, Quinonez is entering her fifth season competing overseas in Italy for the club Campobasso in the Serie A1 division, and she averaged a career-best 10.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.1 steals in 25 minutes per game last season. She helped Campobasso to the A1 semifinals for the first time since the team was elevated from the
A2 division in 2020. In Italy, Quinonez has already played alongside multiple former NCAA standouts including Indiana’s Sarah Scalia and Georgia’s Que Morrison.
The forward also has experience competing for the Ecuadorian national team at the U16 Americas Championship in 2019 and the South American Championship in 2022. She was invited to the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders camp this summer — the same camp that former international Huskies Nika Muhl (Croatia) and Aaliyah Edwards (Canada) attended in 2019 before eventually committing to UConn. It was only the second all-girls iteration of the camp, which brought 40 of the best young international players from around the world to train in Phoenix during the WNBA’s All-Star weekend.
The Huskies have a long history of success with international prospects, most recently Edwards and Muhl who were both selected in the 2024 WNBA Draft. Muhl, who had never been to the United States before attending Basketball Without Borders, graduated as UConn’s program record-holder for career assists, and Edwards was named a first-team All-American by the WBCA in her senior season. The Huskies also had Lou Lopez-Senechal (France/Mexico) and Dorka Juhasz (Hungary) both drafted in 2023, and four former Huskies represented a country other than the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Quinonez will be UConn’s first player from South America.
UConn’s top commitment so far in its 2025 class is 5-9 guard Kelis Fisher. Fisher ranked No. 28 in the class by ESPN and made her decision official early on in the process in January of her sophomore year. The Huskies also picked up a commitment from 6-5 forward Gandy Malou-Mamel, the No. 72 recruit in the class, last July. The early signing period for women’s basketball opens on Nov. 13.
