STORRS — Normal has never been a part of Paige Bueckers’ experience with UConn women’s basketball, from COVID-19 restrictions in her freshman year to an ACL tear last season.
But as the former No. 1 recruit reflects on her time as a Husky ahead Friday’s senior night, Bueckers is overwhelmingly grateful for the unbreakable connections adversity has helped her forge with teammates.
“I feel like I was just here yesterday playing UMass Lowell in our first game freshman year, playing in front of cardboard faces. To see where we are now, it’s kind of crazy and surreal,” she said. “In the COVID year, we didn’t have any other friends. We were with each other 24/7 and there was no escape, but it bonded us like no other … We feel as individuals and as a group that nothing can break us. Everything life has thrown at us these past four years, we feel like we can handle anything that comes our way.”
Bueckers is eligible for the 2024 WNBA Draft and will participate in the Senior Night celebration after UConn (21-5, 13-0 Big East) faces Georgetown (16-9, 6-8) at Gampel Pavilion. She is almost universally projected as a top-3 pick in this year’s draft, but the senior could play up to two more seasons in Storrs thanks to the pandemic and her medical redshirt. The Huskies have also set a precedent of allowing players multiple senior nights after Dorka Juhasz walked in both 2022 and 2023.
Bueckers was coy about plans to announce a decision for the 2024-25 season, offering only a shrug and a smirk Thursday, but coach Geno Auriemma said he doesn’t expect to know for sure about his superstar’s future until after the postseason.
“I would think if they haven’t said anything to me, they probably just want to concentrate on the season, and you don’t know,” Auriemma said. “For some kids, maybe it is about where am I going in the draft. For others it’s about if I want to stay in college or not … Each individual has to make that decision, but it’s not $30 million we’re talking about. For a lot of these kids, it’s not a financial decision we’re talking about. It’s a lifestyle decision.”
Fellow seniors Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Muhl and fifth-year Aubrey Griffin will also participate in the senior night festivities Friday, but all three have another year of eligibility to use if they want it. Auriemma confirmed Thursday that he expects Griffin to return next season after recovering from her season-ending ACL tear suffered Jan. 3.
The class has been forced to overcome an unprecedented amount of loss in four years: The Huskies have played most of the 2023-24 season with less than 10 healthy players for the second year in a row, and all but two players on the roster missed at least one game due to injury or illness in each of the previous two seasons.
“Somehow, some way they’ve managed to stay in there. I know they’re probably disappointed in how this particular season has unfolded … It’s really been quite a journey for them,” Auriemma said. “But at no time did I get this feeling that they were ‘Woe is me’ or feeling sorry for themselves, ever … To be able to hold up under those circumstances takes a lot of toughness.”
Edwards is also widely considered a top-10 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, but UConn’s incoming recruiting class doesn’t include any forwards, so bringing back the 2023 All-American could be key in helping Ayanna Patterson and Jana El Alfy ease back onto the court after season-ending injuries. The UConn seniors are actively having conversations about what the future could hold, and there’s no question that their decisions will have some influence on each other. Bueckers said she hasn’t let go of the conviction that a fully-healthy roster has all of the pieces to get the program back to an NCAA championship.
“The past couple of years we’ve kind of learned not to get our hopes up, but you can’t help it sometimes just (thinking) what this team could look like,” Bueckers said. “That always the glass-half-full sort of optimistic approach of us favoring wanting to come back within obviously pondering the draft and starting to become a professional, which UConn does a great job preparing you for. So it’s a lot of conversations just picking each other’s brains and trying to see what everybody else is going to do.”
UConn women’s basketball vs. Georgetown: How to watch
Site: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs
Time: 7 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 16
Series: UConn leads, 53-6
Last meeting: UConn, 83-55; Jan. 7 in Washington, D.C.
TV: SNY
Streaming: SNY.tv
Radio: UConn Sports Network on Fox Sports 97.9