HARTFORD — Paige Bueckers got after it like any player trying to prove herself Wednesday night, essentially pushing her way back into college basketball and grappling with the mercurial nature of the sport in the UConn women’s 102-58 victory over Dayton at the XL Center.
Sleeves wrapped knee pads tightly onto both Bueckers’ legs. Tape supported her jammed and ginger left thumb. She got yelled at by coach Geno Auriemma. She had a long, intense discussion with an official. She took a necessary step back into all the messiness that she’s often cleaned up so brilliantly, even effortlessly, in years past.
“I’m still learning how to give myself grace,” Bueckers said after finishing with eight points, seven rebounds and four assists on 3-for-9 shooting. “I’m not ignorant enough to think that it’s going to be a linear trajectory this whole time and I’m just going to be on the up and up, and be the old Paige, and have a great game every game. This is a process, coming back from a major injury, getting my lungs, getting the rhythm and flow back.”
Bueckers played an official game Wednesday for the first time in 19 months. She last appeared in UConn’s 2022 national championship game loss to South Carolina. A torn ACL sustained in August of that year cost her the entire 2022-23 season.
For that reason, and a separate knee injury that sidelined or limited her for much of 2021-22, Bueckers has been so removed from basketball for the better part of two years that it’s easy to forget, even just a little, that this sport isn’t always as beautiful or simple as the highlight compilations stuck in our minds would suggest.
Yet what we remember are the winning shots against Tennessee and South Carolina as Bueckers rolled to 2021 national player of the year awards as a freshman, and the way she completely took over an epic 2022 Elite Eight overtime victory over NC State. The graceful pull-up jumpers. The no-look passes. The mischievous way she played, as if knowing something no one else did.
Bueckers has a complicated project at hand, though. She’s not starting from scratch. But she’s anxious, even with a relaxed sense of gratitude for having returned. Feeling normal again doesn’t necessarily mean putting up 25 points or 15 assists. It means stepping back into an arena — literally and figuratively — and just seeing where she stands again. That was accomplished Wednesday.
UConn’s Paige Bueckers (5) attempts a shot as Dayton’s Riley Rismiller (30) defends during women’s college basketball action at the XL Center Arena in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday November 8, 2023.
Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media“There’s a certain amount of leadership that we need from her, and she’s so far ahead of herself,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “She wants to get it all back on each possession, the whole year back on each possession. You saw her in the first half, trying so hard.”
Auriemma gave Bueckers an earful at one point while sitting her down on the bench. This has happened before. It will happen again. Not all interactions in the coach/player relationship, even one as tight as this, are sweet or playful. Auriemma and Bueckers butting heads Wednesday was them working through something together.
“She said she likes when I yell at her so I just want to keep her happy,” Auriemma said. “I’m a pleaser. We were always on her about get in the lane more, attack the basket more, create more — as if she didn’t already do that. She’s full of confidence, because she’s bigger, she’s stronger. She wants to feel what it’s like to get hit, so she put herself in those situations a lot. The game doesn’t all of the sudden leave you, when you haven’t played. But it also doesn’t automatically come back that fast, either. Given that it was the first game, she was what I thought she would be.”
Auriemma added that Bueckers will be better Sunday at NC State, and better again next Thursday at Gampel Pavilion against Maryland. UConn then plays Nov. 19 at Minnesota, a homecoming for Bueckers, a senior, before facing UCLA and Kansas in the Cayman Islands and playing at Texas Dec. 3.
That’s the dizzying on-ramp to a season and re-introduction for a star player.
Bueckers played 20-plus minutes Wednesday night. She averaged 36.2 as a freshman in 2020-21, her only uninterrupted season (missing just one game).
“There’s a medical minute restriction, and then there’s my restriction,” Auriemma said. “And she’s not going to like mine.”
Auriemma was smirking. Bueckers’ minutes will increase over time.
“She’s so anxious to play,” he said, “and she wants to do everything and be everywhere.”
UConn’s Paige Bueckers (5) attempts a shot under the basket as Dayton’s Anyssa Jones (3) defends during women’s college basketball action at the XL Center Arena in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday November 8, 2023.
Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut MediaIt’s part of his job now to slow her down a little. Also, Bueckers at 22 doesn’t have to be the same exact player she was at 19. She doesn’t even have to be the Huskies’ leading scorer this season like she was three years ago at an average of 20 points.
Aaliyah Edwards had 23 points Wednesday on 10-for-12 shooting and she’ll be a constant force in the paint. Azzi Fudd had 13, but shot just 4-for-12, and she’s probably the player most capable of pouring in 30 on a given night.
This year’s team, which will attain a No. 1 national ranking if it wins Sunday, is deeper than the 2020-21 team, which lost a national semifinal to Arizona at the Final Four. It’s not quite clear who could be, or should be, UConn’s leading scorer by the time the season hits, say, New Year’s.
“Paige could score 10 points and get 10 assists every night and she’s happy as long as we win,” Auriemma said. “It’s an interesting scenario. I’m anxious to see myself. … You don’t win national player of the year unless you have to do a lot of things, and she had to do a lot of things. And she did. That’s why she won those awards and that’s why we were in the Final Four. Now, she has to do less. And yet, at the same time, she wants to do more. I called just enough plays to keep her happy [Wednesday], and I kind of leave it in her hands, like, when do you want to shoot, when do you want to pass. If she wants to score, she’ll score. If she doesn’t, she won’t.”
Getting yelled at only helped Bueckers feel part of something again. Getting ripped in front of the team in a recent film session had the same effect.
“Just like old times, huh?” Bueckers said. “Just excited to be back out there, regardless of what it is. Last year, sitting on the bench, I would have done anything to be out there just to get yelled at. Different perspective that I have now. It’s really just like old times, Coach getting on me, me taking it and improving from that. I’m grateful to have a bad game and just be able to play basketball again.”
Bad game? Was it, though?
“In my opinion, it was a bad game for me,” Bueckers said. “But I’m grateful to have a bad game right now.”