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Carl Adamec: Buecker's injury doesn't change UConn women's goals

carl adamec, journal inquirer, manchester, conn.
·4 min read
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Aug. 4—On April 3, following his UConn women's basketball team's loss to South Carolina in the national championship game at the Target Center in Minneapolis, coach Geno Auriemma took a moment to look ahead.

"This year was a perfect example of how you plan for some things and then all of a sudden your plans get blown up," Auriemma said. "I like our chances, provided we don't have to navigate a season like we did this year. If we stay healthy, I expect to be back here next year."

Four months later, three months and a week before the first regular-season game of 2022-23 against Northeastern, Plan A is out the window and the work on Plan B is underway.

UConn announced Wednesday that junior guard Paige Bueckers suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee during a pick-up game Monday and will miss the upcoming season. She will have surgery at the UConn Health Center in Farmington on Friday.

If the Huskies are to extend their NCAA records of 28 straight Sweet 16 appearances, 16 consecutive Elite Eight berths, and 14 straight Final Four bids while competing for a 12th national championship, they will do so without their best player and arguably the best player in the country.

The news has been described by some as a "gut punch" and it has left UConn and many women's basketball fans from around the country doubled over from the hit.

The season, though, is not over.

The journey got harder, much harder. But come Nov. 10 when the Huskies take the court for the opener against Northeastern, their goals will not have changed from what they were last week or last month when most of them headed home for a break before the start of fall semester classes.

The heartbreaking part is that Bueckers stayed on campus to work on herself and her game. The results from her work in the weight room were showing. The left knee injury suffered Dec. 5 that cost her 19 games of her sophomore season was healed. She was ready to be everything she was as a freshman when she was the national Player of the Year and even more.

"I like to do everything for everybody else," Bueckers said in late June at Auriemma's Fore the Kids charity golf tournament at Hartford Golf Club. "I think the biggest thing for me this summer was taking a step back and actually staying at school. I feel like when I'm at home everybody thinks, 'It's the offseason. She can come here and do this. She can come here and do that.' I knew I would be all over the place if I were at home so I wouldn't have time to rest or get better.

"So I think the biggest thing for me was staying at school this summer to stay focused. I'm getting stronger. I'm getting bigger. I'm getting quicker. And I'm sharpening my skills as a basketball player."

And now we won't see the results of her work until late next year.

An update on her recovery timetable will be made available following the surgery on Friday, UConn announced. Hopefully, she will not rush through the rehabilitation process and risk another injury to the knee. Auriemma and his staff will do their best to not let her. Bueckers, who during her rehab and return to the court this past season still found time to make the spring semester Dean's List, is too smart and knows her future is still too bright to take chances.

She'll be the best teammate she can be and the Huskies will need her support.

Unless there is a late addition to the roster, UConn has 10 players available. Three — graduate student forward Dorka Juhász (left wrist), redshirt junior Aubrey Griffin (back), and sophomore Caroline Ducharme (left hip) — are coming back from major surgery. Three more — freshmen Ayanna Patterson and Isuneh Brady along with graduate student transfer Lou Lopez Sénéchal — will be making their UConn debut.

Only four — Lopez Sénéchal, Ducharme, junior Nika Mühl, and sophomore Azzi Fudd — are listed as guards.

The Huskies went 15-4 without Bueckers a season ago but then there was always the hope that she'd be back at some point.

This season the players who will take the practice floor in October will be the ones that will try to get them to the 2023 Final Four at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

If they are anything like UConn teams we've seen throughout Auriemma's tenure, they won't back down from that challenge.

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Carl Adamec is a Journal Inquirer staff writer. He has covered the UConn women's basketball team for 33 years.

For coverage of all sports in the JI's 18-town coverage area, plus updates on the UConn women's basketball team and head coach Geno Auriemma, follow Carl Adamec on Twitter: @CarlAdamec, Facebook: Carl Adamec, and Instagram: @CarlAdamec.