While you're keeping things in mind, please keep in mind that several players who never started regularly at UConn in four years (Kiah Stokes, Ketia Swanier, and Ashley Battle come to mind) were able to have multi-year WNBA careers despite that fact. Yes, by their senior year, they were playing a significant number of minutes, but they never started more than a game or two (perhaps when someone was injured). Others like Saniya Chong only started during their senior year. Others that we don't think of as major players (Kaili McLaren and Megan Gardler, for example) have played overseas after graduating from UConn. If Natalie Butler makes a WNBA team in 2018, it will partly be due to the numbers that she is putting up at George Mason, but also to the visibility that she had for two years (playing against big-time competition) on the UConn roster.
A significant offset to the fact that playing time is more scarce at UConn than at other schools is the fact that UConn is on national TV more than any other team (by a wide margin), so WNBA coaches see UConn players, including bench players, more than they see good players on other teams. I suspect that most WNBA coaches could tell you not only who the juniors and seniors on UConn's bench are, but what their strengths and weaknesses are, whereas they might have almost no clue about the bench players for Louisville, Texas, Ohio State, or other schools that you might think of.
If AEH had stayed, she might never have been a starter (or maybe she would have been), but she probably would have enough minutes and enough "ESPN time" by the time of her graduation that she would be under consideration by WNBA teams.