Mike Anthony: UConn freshman Paige Bueckers, with high school hype pushed aside, set to build a new resume with the Huskies

Paige Bueckers brought a basketball reputation celebrated like few others to UConn from her home in suburban Minneapolis. She has 559,000 Instagram followers, a TMZ or People Magazine-type appeal and a frivolous personality that screams reality TV potential.

While discussing her recent life transition and her relationship with a new coach Wednesday evening after the Huskies' first official practice, Bueckers turned producer by turning the camera of a Zoom meeting toward Geno Auriemma.

“She’s a Kardashian,” Auriemma said while leaving the gym.

Earlier, he had quipped, “Paige, she is my idol. Paige is famous for being famous.”

Bueckers is famous, for sure. She’s also a freshman, a rookie, one of the new kids.

The most difficult, and potentially most rewarding, part of her basketball life begins now.

A resume that once could have crashed LinkedIn is now, for purposes of the next endeavor, essentially blank.

What’s encouraging is that Bueckers seems to understand and embrace that.

“I try to leave all the hype and all the high school accolades and all the high school attention away,” she said. “I don’t try to bring that into college at all. I’ve just been trying to gain the respect of my teammates and coaches and I try not to worry about pressure.”

The reputation Bueckers will carry well into adulthood is being built, for now, one drill at a time. She turns 19 on Monday. Let’s remember that, and the fact that just about every freshman, save for maybe Maya Moore, goes through some period of pronounced struggle as a first-year player at UConn.

Let’s allow her to get acclimated, to learn, to even fail a few times, before demanding she take over college basketball the way she did high school basketball.

Bueckers was the national Gatorade player — and athlete — of the year as a senior at Hopkins High, where she led her team to consecutive undefeated seasons and was featured in one documentary and magazine piece after another, all the while finding time to sign autographs for hundreds of fans after games played in front of thousands.

Her record at UConn is 0-0.

“I can’t even tell you the other names I call her because I just get such a kick out of it,” Auriemma said, his comments dripping with sarcasm. “It’s just great to be in the presence of greatness and be in the aura of her celebrity-ness. We’ve been such a downtrodden program for all these years. We needed that savior to come in here and save us, and she’s the anointed one. I’m waiting for the three Magi to come bring me some gifts for having her.”

What brings lasting fame to players in Auriemma’s program are Final Fours, national championships and Olympic medals. Bueckers will need time — and help — to achieve any of those things.

Bueckers is just the latest in a long line of high-profile recruits to enter this program, but most came before the momentum and powerful influence of social media.

Stars are typically born in Storrs. In this case, one has arrived in Storrs. Bueckers isn’t quite Kim Kardashian (190 million Instagram followers) but she’s as well known in the basketball world as some players who just won a WNBA championship.

It’s a bit backwards, like so much else in 2020. With a pandemic keeping the team generally isolated, and the program providing its own insulation, the spotlight on Bueckers has actually dimmed as a member of the most accomplished program in history. It’s been months since she was swarmed by reporters and TV cameras or crowds that sometimes took hours to work through.

“I try not to pay attention too much to that stuff,” she said. "It helps that none of these girls really care. They just care about the team, the team winning, and that’s what I’m all about, too.

“I don’t know what I’m famous for, either. I really want to prove I wasn’t just a player who could play in high school. I want to continue that success at the college level.”

Acknowledging that high school accomplishments aren’t necessarily currency inside a college gym does not mean dismissing what is at the heart of a reputation.

Bueckers was lauded, first and foremost, because she is a spectacular player. She is unique in the way she creates for herself and others. She is creative, confident. She plays with flare. She’s seemingly unflappable and now well-trained in performing under great scrutiny. She was a varsity player as an eighth grader, and the No. 1 recruit in America, for a reason.

The tools are there. More important, the right approach is there.

“I don’t think she can believe all the hype,” Auriemma said. “I don’t think she can believe all the stuff that’s out there about her because that’s like 180 [degrees] from who she is on the court with our players. You would never know — except for her talent. She’s just a regular kid that has a lot of talent. You would think somebody who is famous, somebody who has all this, would just take it for granted. She’s in the gym all the time working on her game and the kids know it. And they love playing with her because when they’re open, they get the ball. And when she’s open, they throw it to her and she scores. She hasn’t been walking around or acting any different than anybody else. ‘I’m just a freshman coming into a big-time program trying to find my way.’”

Auriemma paused.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “She knows she’s good. And that is part of being good.”

Auriemma signed off Zoom with Bueckers waiting in a breakout room.

“Tell Paige I said hi,” he said. “Tell her people to call my people.”

Minutes later is when Bueckers turned the spotlight off herself, just for a moment, by turning the camera toward her coach.

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