Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma didn’t have to prove anything to anyone on Sunday. Their talents, and their splendor at UConn, were not up for debate. These two are legendary.
The thing about these two legends, though? They just can’t stop proving their greatness.
Not even mighty South Carolina could interfere with the reality this NCAA title belonged to UConn, the last great dynasty before Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks ascended.
UConn rules women’s basketball once again, after a dominant NCAA Tournament run throughout which the Huskies showed they possessed the game’s brightest star, wisest coach, and most complete team.
Bueckers will always be the one who brought UConn back to the summit, and she’ll always say she received so much help getting the Huskies there.
Both will be true.
“It takes a village to do what we do here,” Bueckers, in typical praise-deflecting fashion, told ABC after the buzzer sounded on the Huskies’ 12th national championship, an 82-59 rout of South Carolina.
Paige Bueckers' teammates rally behind UConn star in Final Four
Bueckers thrived throughout the first four legs of this six-round tournament, reminding everyone why she’s nicknamed Paige “Buckets.”
In the Final Four, her shots stopped falling at such a high rate. Seven of her 17 points in the championship game came from the free-throw line. Teammates Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong shouldered the brunt of the scoring, and Bueckers beamed as brightly as ever throughout the entire fourth quarter. By then, it had become clear that the Huskies possessed too much firepower for South Carolina to contain, and Bueckers would culminate her career in triumph, as UConn celebrated its first national championship since 2016.
With 92 ...
