Paige Bueckers heads to another Final Four in search of perfect ending

In partnership with

Welcome to the UConn WBB Weekly, a recap of everything that happened in the world of UConn women’s basketball over the past week from the team that runs The UConn Blog.

Sign up to get the Weekly in your inbox every Thursday or subscribe to get our premium newsletter which includes game coverage, analysis, recruiting updates, and more!

Headlines

News

• Sarah Strong named WBCA Freshman of the Year

• Chasing Perfection: Paige Bueckers takes over Spokane

Sweet Sixteen coverage

• UConn surges past Oklahoma, 82-59

• Paige Bueckers goes nuclear to send UConn to the Elite Eight

• Ashlynn Shade's toughness proves invaluable in Sweet Sixteen win over Oklahoma

• How UConn plans to defend OU star Raegan Beers

Elite Eight coverage

• UConn holds off USC, 78-64

• How UConn stopped USC's comeback bid to advance to Final Four

• Kaitlyn Chen helps lift UConn to Tampa for her "first and last Final Four"

• UConn empathizes with USC, JuJu Watkins

• How Sarah Strong moved past missed free throw vs. USC

Last week’s Weekly

• KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade don't need to score to change games

Elsewhere

• Can Paige Bueckers lead UConn back to an NCAA championship? (ESPN)

• Geno, Lobo and the team that changed women's basketball: An oral history of 1994-95 UConn (ESPN)

Paige Bueckers heads to another Final Four in search of perfect ending

Paige Bueckers has played in four NCAA Tournaments at UConn. Each time — despite depleted rosters, pandemic restrictions, poor matchups or even her own injury — she’s made it to the Final Four.

Yet while the Huskies have now gone at least that far in 16 of the last 17 tournaments — in fact, they had made the previous 12 when she arrived in Storrs — Bueckers hasn’t just been along for the ride. She’s been the reason they keep going back.

Bueckers has dominated the Elite Eight — the round Geno Auriemma often calls the toughest — every year. As a freshman, she totaled 28 points against Baylor. The next year, she took over with 27 points, 23 of which came after halftime, in a double-OT thriller over NC State. Last season, Bueckers out-dueled JuJu Watkins and USC with 28 points.

On Monday, she put 31 points up on the Trojans, becoming the first player ever with four 25+ point performances in regional finals, per ESPN’s Alexa Philippou.

Across the weekend, Bueckers had 71 points to earn the Spokane 4 Regional Most Outstanding Player Award, joining Maya Moore as the only player in NCAA history to earn the honor four times, according to Carl Adamec.

Bueckers established herself as the greatest Elite Eight player in history and with that, gave herself one final shot at a national title.

“I'm glad she's getting an opportunity. That's all you want, just an opportunity,” Auriemma said. “It would have been really, really disappointing to not be able to go.”

While Bueckers knows how difficult it is to reach the Final Four, it isn’t enough to just get there. To this point, every season of her career has ended in heartbreak: National semifinal losses to Arizona (2021) and Iowa (2024) as well as a championship game defeat to South Carolina (2022). Bueckers didn’t come this far just to come this far.

“We're extremely excited to go to the Final Four. We don't take it for granted,” she said. “But we know the journey isn't done.”

It helps that Bueckers is currently playing the best basketball of her career. Entering the NCAA Tournament, she hadn’t hit the 30-point mark all season but has now done so in three consecutive games: 34 against South Dakota State, 40 vs. Oklahoma — both a career-high and a program-record in March Madness — and 31 in the win over USC.

While Bueckers has put up big numbers in past NCAA Tournaments, this is different. A year ago, she needed to carry a young team that had been devastated by injuries. Now, she’s just doing it because she can.

“Last year, it got to a point where she thought, ‘If I don't get 30-35, points, we're going to lose.’ I think now, she's going out there and playing like, ‘I want to get 30,’” Auriemma said. “She's got a whole different vibe about her.”

It’s not just that Bueckers has a lighter load, either. She’s also showed that she wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers at the regionals. She rallied the Huskies when they were down at the half to Oklahoma then settled them when USC cut a 19-point lead down to five at the end of the third quarter.

Now that she’s at the end of her career, Bueckers knows that winning trumps all.

“There were some heated huddles, some holding each other accountable, some feistiness,” she said. “But it's because we all want to win, and we all want to keep the season going as long as possible.”

Regardless of how it shakes out, there’s not much left of the season. At most, Bueckers has two games remaining in her UConn career.

It’s fitting that it’ll end in Tampa. She announced her commitment to UConn on April 1, 2019 then made her first public appearance as a Husky at the Final Four in the city. Six years later, Bueckers will try to achieve her ultimate goal: A national championship.

“You know it's coming to an end, and it's going to end whether you want it to or not, whether you like it or not. You can't prevent it,” Auriemma said. “You just want to make it the best weekend of her career at UConn, and it's my job to help her do that.”

Best of social media

UConn made it to Tampa:

Geno met up with Gonzaga MBB coach Mark Few in Spokane:

A look back at the 2019 Final Four:

Support back in Storrs:

Always UConn:

Dan O knows:

This is really good:

Receive Honest News Today

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

Sign up today!