How Paige Bueckers is taking advantage of her first normal offseason at UConn

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• What we learned from UConn's summer workouts

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How Paige Bueckers is taking advantage of her first normal offseason at UConn

For the first time in her collegiate career, Paige Bueckers is in the midst of a normal, healthy offseason. In each of the previous three summers, the superstar always had something going on — whether it be ankle surgery in 2021, recovering from the knee injury that limited her in 2022 or working back from a torn ACL in 2023.

Now, Bueckers only has to worry about getting better as a basketball player, which is a welcome change.

“I'm enjoying it,” she said. “I haven't had a lot of time this whole college career to work on my skills and get better during the offseason, work on my weaknesses and get better at my strengths.”

She’s not overcomplicating anything, though. The best way to get better as a basketball player is by playing basketball, so that’s what Bueckers is doing.

“It's playing a lot, playing a lot of 1-on-1,” she explained. “Offensively, defensively working on that, learning how to play with pace… Continue to work on little things like shooting with range, shooting more threes, and just continuing to improve.”

Bueckers has also spent plenty of time in the weight room. During summer workouts in 2022 — the healthiest she’d been in an offseason prior to this one — she made a point of showing off her newfound muscles. A torn ACL in August interrupted that progress but now Bueckers is back to building up her strength.

“Continue to try to get stronger, that's a huge thing that I'm working on,” she said. “I'm learning how to use my strength and play to that.”

Not only will that allow Bueckers to better absorb contact when teams get physical with her, she can finally give it back, too.

“It’s been just a learning process. I never really had this sort of frame and muscle strength to use my body in that way. I was always more agile and playing sort of wavy,” she said. “Now I feel like I could play with more force and just use my strength on both sides of the ball. Play more physically. It's been a learning process and I'm still learning but yeah, it's gotten better.”

At the same time, Bueckers doesn’t want to put on too much muscle so that it takes away from her athleticism since that’s a staple of her game. So she’s walked a fine line.

“You don't want to lose your speed, lose your quickness, lose your agility, but also you want to add strength and muscle,” she said. “I’m continuing to find that line.”

Bueckers isn’t just working on the physical parts of her game, either. After UConn lost to Iowa — a game in which she scored just 17 points and only took three shots in the fourth quarter — Geno Auriemma criticized her for not being assertive enough.

While that’s been a battle throughout Bueckers’ entire career, time is running out. Since this will likely be her final season with the Huskies, she understands she can’t wait around anymore. Bueckers knows she needs to finally become the alpha.

“I think just being more assertive being more aggressive, not being passive — which is not equal to ‘I'm not passing anymore.’ I love to pass but just looking for my shot, creating for others,” she said.

Bueckers doesn’t plan on overhauling her game, though. She’ll still be the same player, just with more of an edge.

“Being a killer and being unselfish, it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both and that's how I've gotten here,” she said. “It's more killer, more aggressive, more assertive, and then the unselfish things can happen.”

Now that summer workouts have ended, Bueckers will have to keep working on her own — and she’ll do it while traveling the country.

When she’s not in the gym, she has a busy summer planned. Shortly after workouts concluded in Storrs, Bueckers traveled down to Washington DC to see Aaliyah Edwards and the Washington Mystics play, then headed to a Washington Spirit match that same day.

This past weekend, Bueckers journeyed to Seattle to visit Nika Mühl and attend a pair of Storm games.

She’s got more on tap, too.

Bueckers will be in Los Angeles for the ESPY Awards — where she’s up for Best Comeback Athlete and is also set to present another honor — has a visit to Montana to see her mom lined up and will also make a stop in Minnesota. Bueckers “might” go to the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix as well.

“It’ll be a lot but it'll be fun,” she said. “I'll get my work in and fun in.”

Considering all Bueckers has been through the last four years between Covid, injuries and everything else, she’s more than earned a normal offseason. Now that she’s got one, she’s taking full advantage — on and off the court.

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