‘She is basketball’: Paige Bueckers and Connecticut are Final Four bound (2024)

You, a 22-year-old, are an expert at balancing a desire for privacy with the expectations of the women’s basketball world. You’re a star, after all, and stars sign autographs when they would rather be soaking in an ice bath. So you jog across the court, spotting the two girls who have been screaming your name for the better part of 10 minutes. Your team, Connecticut, had just beaten Southern California, 80-73, at Moda Center on Monday night in the Portland Region 3 final of the NCAA tournament. You sign a pink Paige Bueckers jersey, right on the No. 5. You sign a red Chicago Bulls jersey, avoiding Michael Jordan’s No. 23.

You sign a sneaker. You sign a black shirt that may never be able to prove you did. Just by moving, you make 13 cameras and four security guards have to move, too. Your stat line, in the third Elite Eight win of your college career, was 28 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, three steals and two blocks. You played all 40 minutes Monday. You also played all 40 minutes Saturday, when you and your team — missing six key players because of injuries — edged Duke.

No wonder you keep hearing your name.

“Today was one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve ever felt in my life,” Bueckers said after the Huskies eliminated top-seeded USC and star freshman JuJu Watkins. “Just seeing where I was a year ago today, doing individual workouts, starting to feel the basketball again. ... Now I’m here with my teammates and coaching staff and we’re going to the Final Four.”

A year ago, Bueckers was still recovering from a torn left ACL, her second major injury in the span of about eight months. She watched Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese square off for the national championship, sidelined as the women’s game exploded. But now she’ll face Clark and Iowa in Cleveland on Friday. South Carolina and North Carolina State will play in the other semifinal. Third-seeded U-Conn. will see how far it can take this miracle run.

On Monday, Bueckers, Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Muhl never sat, even after Muhl picked up her fourth foul in the third quarter. Without so many contributors, the Huskies don’t have the luxury of resting much. Edwards, a senior forward, finished with 24 points. When Muhl committed that fourth foul, Geno Auriemma, the Huskies’ 70-year-old coach, leaned both elbows on the scorers’ table and closed his eyes. Thirteen minutes separated him from his record 23rd Final Four. The Huskies led by nine.

But it wasn’t just Muhl in foul trouble. Freshman guard KK Arnold had four, too.

“I told myself I wasn’t going to foul out,” said Muhl, a senior guard. “But I didn’t tell myself I wasn’t going to get four.”

Knowing he couldn’t lose Muhl, Auriemma switched Bueckers onto Watkins, who finished with 29 points (and 10 rebounds) and broke the NCAA single-season scoring record for a freshman. From the tip, though, guarding Watkins and guard McKenzie Forbes was a full-team effort. Watkins noted how, every time she drove, it felt as though there was another U-Conn. defender in her way. The Huskies switched constantly and trapped the Trojans’ scorers around ball screens.

In the middle of that effort, Bueckers battled USC’s post players, then Watkins, then whomever Auriemma needed her to. As a freshman in 2021, after she won every player of the year award, she took U-Conn. to the Final Four. As a sophom*ore, she led the Huskies to the national championship game, losing to South Carolina. And here, on the other side of back-to-back knee injuries, she is two wins away from what has escaped the Huskies since 2016.

“She is basketball,” freshman guard Ashlynn Shade said. “She embodies greatness every time she steps on the court.”

“Because every kid has this, I know that there’s a fear of: ‘What if I can’t?’ ” Auriemma said Monday night. “Anybody that tells you there’s not, they’re lying, okay? But the great ones ... they put that in the back of their mind and they just go and they do what they do. We’ve had some great ones on that Mount Rushmore. I don’t know that we could fit them all, you know? But all she needs is to win a national championship.”

Deep in the fourth quarter, as U-Conn. pulled away, Bueckers split a double team, nailed a floater, then sprinted to guard Watkins. While breaking USC’s press, she would somehow keep one eye on Auriemma, taking the next play call. And when the Huskies won, she was the first player to break from their celebration and join the handshake line.

Her brain seems preloaded with every possibility on a basketball court. It processes at warp speed.

But after signing for those screaming girls, you — Paige Bueckers — allow yourself a tiny treat. You take a deep breath. Then on the other side of the court, more fans waiting, more people begging for your attention, you scribble another round of autographs. You take someone’s iPhone and snap a selfie.

Above the tunnel, a teenage dude yells: “Paige, look at me! Please look at me!”

Inside the tunnel, you can finally relax.

Up ahead, on your way to the locker room, you spot Andrea Hudy, the Huskies’ director of sports performance. With only eight scholarship players healthy, it’s Hudy who helps keep everyone fresh. So you crow-hop, hanging in the air, before smacking Hudy’s bottom. Hudy yelps. You peek over your shoulder, a huge grin on your face.

Once you join your teammates, you all get ready to douse Auriemma with your water bottles. When you do, some splashes on the Portland Region champion trophy in the corner, resting there by a fridge. No one wants to damage it, of course, even though your teammates did drop the trophy on the court by the bench earlier. You just all hope to win a bigger one soon.