UNCASVILLE — The last time Lou Lopez-Senechal played a basketball game at Mohegan Sun Arena, on March 6, 2023, she scored 14 points on 62.5% shooting to help the UConn women’s basketball team win its 21st Big East championship and earn all-tournament honors.
On Friday, nearly 15 months later, Lopez-Senechal returned to the state she called home for five years in college to face the Connecticut Sun in what is her rookie WNBA season with the Dallas Wings. Dallas selected her with the No. 5 overall pick in 2023 but she underwent season-ending knee surgery shortly after the WNBA Draft to repair a lingering injury suffered at UConn.
“It took longer than we thought it would, but I also tried not to rush anything,” Lopez-Senechal said. “I knew that it was the beginning of my professional career, so I didn’t want to rush anything or take the wrong steps, so I really took it seriously … Even on the sideline (last year), I was trying to really be involved with the team as much as possible, listen to them, learn … and I think it made me feel a bit better now coming back to Dallas and knowing who I was surrounded with.”
Lopez-Senechal played for four years at Fairfield before transferring to UConn in 2022-23, and the 6-foot-1 guard made an immediate impact in her lone season with the Huskies. She earned first-team All-Big East honors averaging 15.5 points and 3.1 rebounds per game, also leading UConn in 3-point shooting, hitting 44%. But because recovery from surgery took longer than Lopez-Senechal expected, she wasn’t able to work out at full speed until early October.
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Lopez-Senechal spent the last seven months playing overseas to ease back into the grind of competition, first with Zabiny Brno in the Czech Republic, then with Spanish squad Jairis. Her development showed over just 21 combined games in the international leagues. She averaged 9.8 points but hit just just 18.2% from 3-point range in eight games for Zabiny Brno, and that improved to 10.8 points on 44.2% outside shooting with Jairis.
“I went first to the Czech Republic, and then switched to a team in Spain, and that ended up being really good. I loved playing in Spain because it’s some of the best competition in Europe,” she said. “It was just trying to get my rhythm back and get playing again. This was the first time for me that I had that type of injury where I had to take a step back for a long time, so I was just grateful to be back on the court with new teammates, a new team. It was a great experience.”
Her biggest challenge returning to the Wings was a late start to training camp. Lopez-Senechal’s Jairis team was competing in the Spanish Liga Feminina playoffs until losing in the quarterfinals on April 28 — the same day WNBA teams reported to begin official practices. She joined Dallas on May 3 and made her first game appearance for the team in an 87-79 win over the Chicago Sky on May 15.
“Definitely the pace is so much faster; I noticed that last year already,” Lopez-Senechal said. “And then the experience of the players, you play against players that have been here for 10-plus years and know the game almost perfectly. There’s definitely an adjustment being new to all of that … but I think there’s always an adjustment for everyone. It takes some time, but those are definitely the biggest factors that I need to adjust to.”
Lou Lopez Senechal #11 of the UConn Huskies defends against Jacy Sheldon #4 of the Ohio State Buckeyes during the first half in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament at Climate Pledge Arena on March 25, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
On a young Wings roster, Lopez-Senechal plays alongside several familiar faces from her college days: Big East rival Maddy Siegrist, the former Villanova star, was drafted alongside Lopez-Senechal at No. 3 last year. Also rookie guard Jacy Sheldon who helped upset her UConn team in the 2023 Sweet 16 to give the Huskies their earliest NCAA Tournament exit since 2005. Senechal said Siegrist has become a close friend since they were drafted together and described the second-year forward as one of her biggest supporters during her injury recovery.
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“I had a feeling (playing with Siegrist) was going to go well, because she’s a really good competitor. She loves to win,” Lopez-Senechal said with a smile. “I saw that when we played against her at UConn, and she has a great personality. She’s so funny. It’s weird at first when you see players that you played against — even Jacy this year — but at the end of the day we all love the game, and I think it’s always cool and really fun to eventually be able to play together.”
A slew of friends in Connecticut, including a former Fairfield teammates, are making the trip down to Uncasville to see Lopez-Senechal on Friday, though she said she’s not sure whether the UConn team will be able to attend amid the start of summer classes and practice in Storrs. It will be a week full of reunions for the former Husky, who will also get to see UConn classmate Dorka Juhasz on Sunday when the Wings face her Minnesota Lynx in Minneapolis. The pair have remained “like sisters” since graduating, and they met up in Italy during the WNBA offseason where Juhasz was playing for Schio in the Serie A1 league.
“She’s been my best friend since UConn, since the draft, and we’ve had a very similar journey, so I think that we really understand each other,” Lopez-Senechal said. “Even during the summer last year in the league, whenever we played each other it’s exciting to see each other and then overseas we saw each other a couple of times, so it’s been great. We’ve been helping each other through a lot of things, and she’s a great support, a great friend, so I’m so happy to see her again this summer soon.”
Have you still seen a lot of mini-liquor bottles, littering the streets in Connecticut?
Members of one environmental group said they still see them, and believe a ban is the best way to solve a multi-tiered problem.
State data shows in the past 12 months, ending September 30, there were more than 93 million mini-liquor bottles sold in our state.
The group supporting local bans says it’s not just the litter, but also the fact mini-liquor bottles are easy to conceal and consume on the job, in the car, or at school.
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The group “Connecticut Towns Nixing the Nip” met this week, working on strategies to get a legislative hearing on the issue in the upcoming 2026 session.
Right now, stores collect a 5-cent surcharge for every mini-liquor bottle sold, resulting in about $5 million annually for town and city environmental cleanup efforts.
Town funding from nip sales
Average revenue per year 2021 to 2025.
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“Having talked to a number of towns, well a few towns, they like the money, said Tom Metzner, a member of the group. “It’s fairly broad in how it can be used. It’s environmental. It doesn’t have to be used for cleaning up nips. And so the towns have become somewhat silent on the issue of banning nips.”
The group cited Chelsea, Massachusetts, where minis are banned, both litter and alcohol related EMS calls decreased.
The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut, which devised the “nickel per nip” program, said banning the mini-liquor bottles would be unprecedented.
Instead, it said the environmental group should be challenging municipalities to prove they actually use the money for cleanup.
Legislative leaders suggested several years ago the way to really do this is to have a redemption program for mini liquor bottles, and now, that could be possible.
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At least one state with the Clynk bottle collection program has redeemed mini-liquor bottles for cash.
The company just announced a major expansion in our state, but it told us it is not aware of a redemption program for mini-liquor bottles here any time soon.
National trust in the federal government is at some of its lowest levels in nearly seven decades, and many Connecticut residents fall in line with that belief, a survey found.
New data from the Pew Research Center found only 17% of Americans believe that what the government does is right either “just about always” or “most of the time,” hitting one of the lowest points Pew has seen since first asking this question in 1958. And according to a DataHaven survey, Connecticut residents trust the federal government less than state or local institutions.
While these are some of the lowest polling numbers seen in American history, national trust in the federal government has been on the decline for decades. Public trust initially dropped in the 1960s and ’70s during the Vietnam War from a near 80% but began rising again in the 1980s into the early ’90s. Trust peaked again after 9/11 before falling.
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The DataHaven survey found that of all Connecticut residents surveyed, only 9% trust the federal government “a great deal” to look out for the best interests of them and their family. About 28% trust the federal government “a fair amount.”
Federal government trust among Connecticut residents was at its highest in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the federal stimulus programs and child tax credit were active.
The DataHaven survey also asked about trust in local and state government. Connecticut residents generally trust these institutions more than they trust the federal government, the survey found.
Trust in the local governments was higher than trust in both state and federal, with 67% of residents surveyed trusting their local government “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”
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And when it came to state government, 61% of residents trust the state “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”
However, across the board, white residents are more likely to trust local and state government than are residents of color. Black residents had higher levels of trust in government than Latino and Puerto Rican residents, but less than white residents.
As of early 2025, the Connecticut State Police was facing a staffing shortage of roughly 300 troopers compared to the more than 1,200 troopers the department had in its ranks over a decade ago. This is due largely to retirements, resignations and a shrinking applicant pool.
Recent academy classes are helping slowly rebuild staffing, but Gov. Ned Lamont and police leadership say Connecticut still needs substantially more troopers to meet public safety demands. More recently, news outlets reported the department had 938 troopers.
This spring, troopers negotiated a 4.5% wage hike with state officials. Troopers’ base pay is on average about $116,000 per year, but that rises to $175,000 per year once overtime is included.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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CT Mirror partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.
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Reginald David is the Community Engagement Reporter for CT Mirror. He builds relationships across Connecticut to elevate community voices and deepen public dialogue around local issues. Previously, he was a producer at KCUR 89.3, Kansas City’s NPR station, where he created community-centered programming, led live event coverage for major events like the NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade, and Royals Opening Day, and launched KC Soundcheck, a music series spotlighting local and national artists. Reginald has also hosted special segments, including an in-depth interview with civil rights leader Alvin Brooks and live community coverage on issues like racial segregation and neighborhood development. He began his public media career as an ‘Integrity in News’ intern at WNPR in Hartford.
