Dom Amore: Paige Bueckers does it all for UConn women, and now we know what she can do when it matters most
Paige Bueckers will have bigger moments at UConn. There will be moments when Gampel is full and the roof is in danger, moments when the stakes will be higher — as in win-or-go-home high.
Nearly four years of these moments are ahead of us, when this cursed pandemic is finally gone. And we know now that when those moments come, they will not be too big for her. The freshman who can do it all has shown she can do it all when it matters.
“It’s a great quality, that usually comes a little but later,” Geno Auriemma said. “She’s got it at such a young age, make the game slow down for her and make the play that has to be made.”
Bueckers slowed everything down when she put up her last shot against South Carolina on Monday night. Having missed all her previous 3-point attempts, she launched one from behind the top of the key, falling backward. It hit iron, bounced straight up and, about five minutes later, it seemed, went through. You’ll see it a few hundred more times.
When her teammates, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who got her the ball, and Nika Muhl, said they knew it was going in, you had to believe them. And if Bueckers said she meant to do that, who’d have doubted her?
“It looked good, it felt good,” she said, “but, yeah, I’d say that was a really nice bounce.”
Sure, it’s possible to read to much into this game, even if it was the latest in the line of UConn’s wins in No. 1-vs.-No. 2 games, even if it means the Huskies will likely be No. 1 next week. If it bodes well for March, it is still February, after all. But one can’t read enough into what Paige Bueckers has become. No, this is something different we are witnessing, even if too few of us can witness it in person.
“There’s not much you can say,” Auriemma said. “I mean, she’s that player. She’s that player that comes along that people talk about. ‘Hey, did you see that kid from Connecticut?’ She’s that kid.”
On a night when a young UConn team grew up, learned how to win, a night that turns freshmen into freshmen-in-name-only, that kid showed her fandom that there is really no limit to what can be expected of her. If that miraculous shot didn’t go in, surely Bueckers would have conjured up something else on a night when her family, her parents and her younger brother, had come from Minnesota to see her play in a UConn jersey for the first time.
“I heard [my father] a lot, he’s a really loud guy,” she said. “It’s just amazing to have my family here.”
A good night began to morph into something unforgettable with 1:35 left in regulation. UConn hadn’t scored in more than 6 1/2 minutes, and the seven-point lead evaporated. Bueckers hit a jumper to get the Huskies back within two, her teammates made a stop, and she made another pull-up to tie the game.
In overtime, where the Huskies again were in trouble, she scored every single point. All nine. Her teammates set the screens, she came off them and hit every shot UConn needed, not a hint of fear of failure.
“She’s doing it in pressure situations, which is really incredible at her age,” Nelson-Ododa said. “She’s able to just take over a game. She just has this constant composure about herself. It’s incredible watching her play and seeing her grow each game.”
In a postgame in which Auriemma emphasized the importance of the roadies who lug the piano for Billy Joel to play in concert — Bueckers as Joel — and also came up with baseball, hockey and boxing analogies, he compared Bueckers to Jim Brown taking his time to pick the right hole to run through. He also reached back for Diana Taurasi’s 32-point game against Tennessee, but couldn’t recall if she was a freshman or sophomore. It was 2002 and she was a sophomore.
Which only adds another layer to what Bueckers, the Big East’s current freshman and player of the week, is doing. Her last five games: 27 points, 22, 32, 30 and 31. Bueckers played all 45 minutes, and also had six steals, five assists and four rebounds, and scored her team’s last 13 points, all against the No. 1 team in the country.
“It’s all just so crazy to me,” Bueckers said, “that I’m just here, just playing with my dream school, in huge games like this with an amazing team and coaching staff. Every single day I’m blessed and thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given.”
In due time, maybe as soon as April and for years to follow, we could be the ones saying such things, because as unreal as this night was for Paige Bueckers, the most incredible thing of all is this:
It’s only just beginning.
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com
