TAMPA, Fla. – When UConn cut down the nets after winning the program’s 12th national championship Sunday, it was the third time Celia Donatio had witnessed the historic women’s basketball program win an NCAA title.
It was also the ninth straight women’s Final Four she was in the stands for. It’s always sweeter when UConn is playing, but Donatio, 61, makes the trip regardless because of the group of 18 women she gets to spend the weekend with.
They affectionately named themselves Old Lady Basketball, a group of former collegiate and high school players who first came together to play pickup ball two decades ago in 2004 at a home in the Boston area. A couple of them attended the Final Four for the first time in 2014 when UConn won its second consecutive national championship.
Two years later in 2016, the entire group witnessed the Huskies win their fourth straight title, and they haven’t missed a Final Four since. Most of them are UConn fans, and it was a full circle moment to see the Huskies win 82-59 at Amalie Arena on Sunday to capture their 12th national championship.
‘It’s no coincidence that this year’s team chemistry was reminiscent of those [earlier] teams,’ Donatio said.
As if the weekend wasn’t already picture-perfect, they happened upon the UConn team hotel on their way out of town Monday morning. They got to meet the team and took photos with UConn coach Geno Auriemma and senior stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd.
‘It was the icing on the cake to meet the team,’ Donatio said. ‘They were gracious and generous as these old ladies turned into teenage fan girls.’
The women all connected in different ways. Some of them met playing pickup with other groups in Boston. Ilsa Webeck met Carrie Stampfer because Stampfer was coaching the game between their 5-year-old sons. Amy Mok, who played volleyball at MIT, was looking for pickup basketball and community when she moved to the Boston area at the end of 2022.
Mok met Donatio at another pickup group, and she was quickly adopted into OLB. It felt like family immediately, especially since Mok had just lost her mother, and she found the support she needed.
They’re together to play basketball, but the basketball is almost secondary at this point.
‘We’ve all gone through various forms of loss, so a big piece of it is guiding each other through loss,’ Dira Cannistraro said. ‘That loss each of us share, and how each of us builds the other one up through that is priceless. Anyone who experiences a new form of loss, there’s been someone else who has already been through that or understands it.’
Sometimes they don’t even need to talk to feel comfort. Sometimes, simply playing their regularly scheduled pickup games is enough therapy.
‘I remember once, Dira, you came into the courts and you were like, ‘I’ve been sitting out in my car, and I wasn’t going to come in. I’m just in a bad place. I don’t want to talk,” Patty Buonaiuto said. ‘And then after you were like, ‘Thank goodness, I feel so much better.”
They’ve carried each other through divorce, death, sickness and injuries. Kristen Halmen dealt with a major knee injury the last two years. When she first had surgery, the rest of the group made a spreadsheet detailing who would bring dinner, who was taking her to physical therapy and any other needs she had. The surgery was on her right knee, so they drove her everywhere.
She couldn’t play with them on the court, but they still showed up for her.
‘I have a 13-year-old daughter, and what I want most for her is not to play in college … I want this for her,’ Halmen said. ‘This experience now makes me realize it’s not about being the best, it’s about the enjoyment of it, and it’s about the community of it.’
It’s a community the group of women built from the ground up, a web that only continues to grow. The oldest member is 69, and the youngest are in their 30s, which Buonaiuto is excited about. They didn’t have younger women in the group for a while, but now they have the next generation, the ones who will carry the group on for years to come.
The Final Four trip is the highlight of every year, but Webeck said ‘we could have fun in a box.’ They have an undeniable chemistry because they all feel the freedom to be who they are, they don’t feel the need to present a certain version of themselves. That doesn’t mean anyone is safe from competition or a good roast – but that’s better for their friendship, Bridget Mulholland said.
‘You have to have a thick skin to be in this room, but you’re also going to be loved like nothing else,’ Mulholland said. ‘I think, it was you’re 300% more likely to have a better friendship and connection if you roast each other.’
The years that pass are marked by the kids that started out in strollers on the sidelines and grew into teenagers mailing in college applications. They’re also distinguished by the increasing difficulty to secure tickets as women’s basketball has grown over the years.
It used to be easy to get tickets. But they’ve had to start planning the trip earlier and earlier every year – they’re already planning for Phoenix in 2026. The price of their suite jumped from $6,000 in 2023 to $20,000 in 2024.
But they appreciate getting to witness the explosion of the popularity and ratings of women’s basketball. Mulholland’s high school team used to have to wear the boys team’s old jerseys. Now players like A’ja Wilson are getting signature shoes with Nike and hosting pop-up shops at the Final Four.
‘We knew how important women’s basketball and Final Four was, but the country didn’t,’ Buonaiuto said. ‘So that’s what’s nice to see, that it’s changed so much, and now they get the same respect.’