If there’s one important lesson from the last four years of Paige Buecker’s college basketball career, it’s this, she explains: “You never know what each day will bring. You never know what life has in store for you.”
There was a time when Bueckers didn’t necessarily feel that way, when she assumed her plans would come to fruition. Like when she arrived in Storrs, Connecticut, in the fall of 2020. She knew then that her first season — already set with COVID-19 protocols for testing, masks and isolation — wouldn’t look quite like she always imagined as a kid. Still, when she thought about the four seasons that lay ahead of her, there was a sense of anticipation and progress: Four years of healthy play, a couple of national titles, a degree and, at the end of it, a spot in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Very little has gone according to plan. Bueckers may have attended the 2024 WNBA Draft, but she was there to help her teammates Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mühl get selected. She described the night as “surreal,” as she always imagined the class she came in with, along with Edwards and Mühl, would be the class she came out with. Instead, she’s now watching the two begin their WNBA careers on TV while she returns to college for offseason training in one of two available redshirt years.
Paige Bueckers supports her teammates in #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/iQnI3sjNht
— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) 16 April 2024
Bueckers has played only two seasons of college basketball, as a freshman when she was named national player of the year, and last season when she was again named an All-American. She made it to the Final Four three times in four years but never won a title.
She has adjusted her expectations and envisions her name being called in the 2025 WNBA Draft. She plans to make the 2024-25 season her last at UConn, she said The athlete.
“There’s a much greater sense of urgency,” Bueckers said. “This is my last year to get what I came here for, which is a national championship. … No more ‘Passive Paige.'”
As Bueckers begins her final chapter in Storrs and completes her first (and last) collegiate offseason workouts where she is fully healthy, she is focused on changing her mentality for good while recognizing the need for flexibility, which is, after all, the lesson she has learned over the past four years.
Bueckers’ last chance at a national title will come with some adjustments. Edwards and Muehl are gone. The three returning seniors – Azzi Fudd, Aubrey Griffin and Caroline Ducharme – are recovering from injuries. Kaitlyn Chen, a Princeton transfer, is adjusting to the program after arriving on campus in late May.
But this change in the roster – nothing new for Bueckers – makes her mental shift all the more important as she prepares to shoulder a lot more.
UConn coach Geno Auriemma can point to March to remind Bueckers of her focus. Talk about Bueckers’ aggressive mentality has been “continuous” since she arrived on campus in 2020, he said. But the Huskies’ recent history, an unexpected run to the Final Four led by Bueckers, provides all the evidence she needs to continue to be a little more selfish on the court. Before the Big East tournament, Auriemma said he told Bueckers, “Paige, you need to get to 30 every night. Just make life easier for everybody else. We don’t have a lot of options. We don’t have a lot of opportunities. So this is what we have. And we can’t mess around with this stuff.”
In short: no more passive Paige.
In five NCAA Tournament games, Buecker’s game elevated to a whole new level. After averaging 21.3 points, 3.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game during the regular season, she averaged 25.8 points, 4.6 assists and 8 rebounds per game while leading the Huskies to their 23rd Final Four.
“I love scoring goals. I’ve always felt like I’m a passer. I love getting my teammates involved. I like to make sure everyone is happy,” Bueckers said. “But at the end of the day, everyone is happy when we win, and I think we have a better chance of winning when I’m aggressive.”
Auriemma added, “She’s too nice and cares too much about what other people think. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great quality. I just don’t know if that’s a great quality for a killer superstar.”
Bueckers has learned too much over the past four seasons to make too many plans. Everything can change in an instant. She knows that because she’s been through it (multiple times). But with a heightened sense of urgency, she’s approaching this offseason differently. She wants to come in as a better scorer, passer and rebounder. When asked where her game can improve, she comes up with many options: her range, 3-pointers, shots off the dribble, one-on-one movement, ball handling, playing with both feet, experimenting with tempo.
She tries not to live too much in the past, nor look too far into the future. She hasn’t rewatched the Huskies’ final game in the 2024 NCAA Tournament — a loss to Iowa — but she will. She knows she needs to watch it to completely put last season behind her. Just like the NCAA Tournament, there will be lessons to be learned from those 40 minutes, but Bueckers still wonders if the game might have turned out differently if she had been just a little more aggressive. With one final year at UConn, she’ll make sure she never feels that way after a game, she said.
“I want to be a selfless player, someone that people enjoy playing with, but at the same time I try to balance that with being a killer, a scorer and a basket-hunter,” she said. “For me, it’s always been a struggle to find the happy medium, but I think from now on, the main thing I need to do is be more aggressive.”
(Photo by Paige Bueckers: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
