STORRS — If the final 92 seconds of UConn’s victory over Syracuse could be captured and framed as stand-alone moment, the moment would belong as usual to Paige Bueckers. In all its magnificent moving parts, it formed a montage of who Bueckers is, and why the UConn women’s basketball team is on its way once more to the NCAA’s Round of 16.
“We have the best player in America, you know,” Geno Auriemma said after UConn escaped Monday with a 72-64 victory. “Just saying that because the numbers in this world of analytics, the numbers say that she is and the whole stat sheet says that she is and everybody that watched knows it.”
This argument has come up before, and it probably will again before this Madness is finished, and it will have no clear resolution because with Bueckers, her uniqueness overshadows the sheer excellence. This is to say, when has to take over a game, as she did with things falling apart for the Huskies (31-5) in this second-round challenge at Gampel, Bueckers takes over — but not in the classic sense of that phrase. She took over and saved the day in her own way, which is every way imaginable.
The Huskies were in good shape with a little over five minutes left, up by as much as 11. Then Nika Muhl fouled out and the dangerously thin bench was exposed, turnovers mounted and the sixth-seeded Orange surged within two points with 1:32 to go. Bueckers’ best was summoned and the Huskies got a bucket, one of her signature pull-up, mid-range shots. Nothing crazy, nothing forced, the right shot at the right time to provide a chance to breathe.
At the other end, Bueckers grabbed a defensive rebound. She missed a pull-up, but with Ashlynn Shade she created a live turnover and got the ball in her hands again. Double-teamed, she found freshman KK Arnold on the left wing.
“The best player passed it to her,” Auriemma said. “That had to make (Arnold) feel like a million bucks.”
Arnold made the three. It rattled in and out, and bounced back in. UConn by six.
“It feels really good, her having trust in me, and me having the confidence to take that shot,” Arnold said.
With four seconds left, Bueckers grabbed the defensive rebound that clinched it, then turned to the student section to call for more noise.
“I just remember last year after the Baylor game, it was a second round game,” Bueckers said. “I just went to my car and I was so emotional because these high-stake games, these games that mean everything, I missed it so much and I just told myself before the Big East Tournament, before this tournament. Just to embrace it and have fun and I prayed so hard a year ago today to be in my shoes where I’m at right now, so just to appreciate it, especially playing here in front of the best fans in the country with the best teammates and the best coaching staff in the world.”
Senior Aaliyah Edwards got the last rebound and ended up at the line with 2.7 seconds to go, knowing it would be her last seconds on the court at Gampel, she exhaled, soaked it all in, and made both free throws to send the Huskies on to Portland, Ore., to face Duke in the Sweet 16.
For Bueckers, those last 92 seconds included two points, a rebound, an assist, helping out with a steal. Tour-de-force, and this NCAA Tournament will require this from her again and again. She finished the game with 32 points, on 14-for-25 shooting, 10 rebounds, six assists and four steals. “The stat-sheet doesn’t do her justice,” Auriemma said. “And yet the stat-sheet was stuffed.”
Taking over a game, in the classic basketball sense, means scoring. Caitlyn Clark, the all-time career scoring leader, and the other stars lighting up the women’s game this March can all do that and dominate the conversation. I’m beginning to see pieces on women’s basketball current star power that barely mention Bueckers but the argument that her impact on a game, and indispensability to her team, cuts across all the columns of a box score, and more, never looked better than Monday night. “It’s when she does it,” Auriemma said.
“Paige is a fun-loving kid who does play basketball for the joy of it. Not from the adulation that comes with it. She’s playing for her teammates and she plays for the love of the game”
– Geno Auriemma on Paige Bueckers pic.twitter.com/OMYDMSpJIJ
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) March 26, 2024
During her freshman year, Bueckers prompted Auriemma to bench her because she didn’t shoot enough. It’s not in her to take shots when she knows someone else has a better look, to take over a game by trying to play one against five..
“I just try to make winning plays the entire game,” Bueckers said. “Contribute to winning. Do whatever it takes offensively, defensively. I play basketball in terms of, I like making the right play. I like taking great shots, not good shots, not necessarily going to force it. Looking for an open teammate, dishing the ball, shooting the ball, whatever the game calls for.”
In her fourth, but not her final season at UConn, Bueckers has gradually reclaimed her game after losing all of last season to a knee injury, and most of the previous season to another knee injury. She kept UConn’s season alive in 2022 with an overtime show against NC State in the Regional Final. Last season, she watched as UConn survived a similarly brutal second-round challenge at Gampel, that time from Baylor, and prayed by March 2024 she could be in the middle of the action again. And in the middle of everything is where Paige Bueckers thrives. She is a point guard, a shooting guard, a wing, he bag full of tricks and, when needed, rocks to sling..
Nika Muhl carries the defensive load for UConn women in NCAA win over Syracuse, breaks assist record
A lot of good things were to be found as this victory is unpacked. In big moments, the freshmen, Arnold and Ashlynn Shade, who has 45 points in the first two tournament games, have not shrunk from the bright lights. When Muhl left the game, there were images of the loss to Notre Dame on Jan. 27, when she fouled out and the player she was guarding, Hana Hidalgo, ran wild. This time, Auriemma said little, let the players tell each other what had to happen.
“We actually had been in that position before against Notre Dame and we had the wrong approach versus tonight,” Bueckers said. “You just get hyper focused, hyper locked in and we just didn’t want our season to end. I thought we responded much better, in a much better way.”
With only eight players available, and Auriemma only used six Monday night, the Huskies have their legs under them. Their transition game and defensive pressure look tireless, and in reaching the Round of 16 for the 30th year in a row, they have proven they can handle this kind of challenge earlier than they have usually had to, and they survived.
Now they advance.
“You need people who can make winning plays at big moments,” Auriemma said, “especially the last five minutes of the game. You need people that can make those plays, the shots that they have to make, the rebounds that they have to get, the lose balls they got to get, the stops they have to have. This team will go as far as Paige is able to carry that kind of a load, as long as she keeps getting a little bit of contributions from everybody.”
If America has forgotten just how good Paige Bueckers is, memories are about to be jogged.