If there’s one necessary lesson from the last 4 years of Paige Buecker's college basketball profession, it is that this, she explains: “You never know what each day will bring. You never know what life has in store for you.”
There was a time when Bueckers didn't necessarily feel that way, when she assumed her plans would come to fruition. Like when she arrived in Storrs, Connecticut, in the autumn of 2020. She knew then that her first season — already set with COVID-19 protocols for testing, masks and isolation — wouldn't look quite like she at all times imagined as a child. Still, when she thought in regards to the 4 seasons that lay ahead of her, there was a way of anticipation and progress: Four years of healthy playing, a few national titles, a level and, at the tip of it, a spot within the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Very little has gone in response to plan. Bueckers could have attended the 2024 WNBA Draft, but she was there to assist her teammates Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mühl get chosen. She described the evening as “surreal,” as she at all times imagined the category she got here in with, together with Edwards and Mühl, can be the category she got here out with. Instead, she's now watching the 2 begin their WNBA careers on TV while she returns to school for offseason training in one among two available redshirt years.
Paige Bueckers supports her teammates in #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/iQnI3sjNht
— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) 16 April 2024
Bueckers has played only two seasons of faculty basketball, as a freshman when she was named national player of the yr, and last season when she was again named an All-American. She made it to the Final Four 3 times in 4 years but never won a title.
She has adjusted her expectations and envisions her name being called within the 2025 WNBA Draft. She plans to make the 2024-25 season her last at UConn, she said.
“There's a much greater sense of urgency,” Bueckers said. “This is my last year to get what I came here for, which is a national championship. … No more 'Passive Paige.'”
As Bueckers begins her final chapter in Storrs and completes her first (and last) collegiate offseason workouts where she is fully healthy, she is targeted on changing her mentality for good while recognizing the necessity for flexibility, which is, in any case, the lesson she has learned over the past 4 years.
Bueckers' last likelihood at a national title will include some adjustments. Edwards and Muehl are gone. The three returning seniors – Azzi Fudd, Aubrey Griffin and Caroline Ducharme – are recovering from injuries. Kaitlyn Chen, a Princeton transfer, is adjusting to this system after arriving on campus in late May.
But this variation within the roster – nothing latest for Bueckers – makes her mental transformation all of the more necessary as she prepares to shoulder lots more.
UConn coach Geno Auriemma can point to March to remind Bueckers of her focus. Talk about Bueckers' aggressive mentality has been “continuous” since she arrived on campus in 2020, he said. But the Huskies' recent history, an unexpected run to the Final Four led by Bueckers, provides all of the evidence she must proceed to be a bit of more selfish on the court. Before the Big East tournament, Auriemma said he told Bueckers, “Paige, you need to get to 30 every night. Just make life easier for everybody else. We don't have a lot of options. We don't have a lot of opportunities. So this is what we have. And we can't mess around with this stuff.”
In short: no more passive Paige.
In five NCAA Tournament games, Buecker's game elevated to a complete latest level. After averaging 21.3 points, 3.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game through the regular season, she averaged 25.8 points, 4.6 assists and eight rebounds per game while leading the Huskies to their twenty third Final Four.
“I love scoring goals. I've always felt like I'm a passer. I love getting my teammates involved. I like to make sure everyone is happy,” Bueckers said. “But at the end of the day, when we win, everyone is happy, and I think we have a better chance of winning when I'm aggressive.”
Auriemma added, “She's too nice and cares too much about what other people think. Don't get me wrong, that's a great quality. I just don't know if that's a great quality for a killer superstar.”
Bueckers has learned an excessive amount of over the past 4 seasons to make too many plans. Everything can change immediately. She knows that because she's been through it (multiple times). But with a heightened sense of urgency, she's approaching this offseason in another way. She desires to are available in as a greater scorer, passer and rebounder. When asked where her game can improve, she comes up with many options: her range, 3-pointers, shots off the dribble, one-on-one movement, ball handling, fiddling with each feet, experimenting with tempo.
She tries to not live an excessive amount of up to now, nor look too far into the longer term. She hasn't rewatched the Huskies' final game within the 2024 NCAA Tournament – a loss to Iowa – but she’s going to. She knows she needs to observe it to completely put last season behind her. Just just like the NCAA Tournament, there can be lessons to be learned from those 40 minutes, but Bueckers still wonders if the sport may need turned out in another way if she had been just a bit of more aggressive. With one final yr at UConn, she'll ensure that she never feels that way after a game, she said.
“I want to be a selfless player, someone that people enjoy playing with, but at the same time I try to balance that with being a killer, a scorer and a basket-hunter,” she said. “For me, it's always been a struggle to find the happy medium, but I think from now on, the main thing I need to do is be more aggressive.”
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