Subscribe
Follow Us
As Paige Bueckers prepares for her final games with UConn the senior guard is approaching the 2024 NCAA Final Four with a new mindset shaped by past experience and personal growth.
“I think last year I got so caught up in the pressures and the stakes of it all,” Bueckers said this week, as reported by Alanis Thames of the Associated Press. “And trying to be perfect and worrying about the wrong things. It’s the last year regardless of what happens. So I’m just enjoying this last weekend.”
Bueckers, expected to be the top pick in the upcoming WNBA Draft, leads UConn women's basketball back to the Final Four for the fourth time in her five-year career. She enters Friday’s semifinal against UCLA averaging 35 points over her last three tournament games, including a career-high 40 in the Sweet 16.
Despite earning AP All-America honors and her third Big East Player of the Year award, Bueckers has yet to win a national championship. UConn last claimed the title in 2016, and only Bueckers and Kerry Bascom rank among the Huskies' top 10 all-time scorers without winning one.
Paige Bueckers leads UConn to second straight Final Four
Her growth this season has been evident on and off the court. ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo noted a more aggressive approach from Bueckers during the tournament, one that contrasts her typical pass-first style.
“This is like, ‘It’s time for me to take over and get our team to the next round’ Paige,” Lobo said, per Kareem Copeland of The Washington Post.
The shift in mindset stems in part from time lost to injury. Bueckers missed most of her sophomore year and all of her junior year due to knee surgeries. She said the time away deepened her appreciation for basketball and life.
Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, who’s developed some of the sport’s greatest players, praised Bueckers’ talent and attitude.
“She just is the most incredibly positive human being I’ve ever been around,” he said. “And I’m really going to miss her.”
Bueckers, who helped lead UConn past South Carolina and Oklahoma en route to Tampa, hopes her final NCAA games deliver the championship that has eluded her and solidify her place among UConn’s all-time greats.
