The NCAA women’s March Madness tournament has concluded and as a surprise to absolutely nobody, one of the tournament’s stars was Paige Bueckers. Bueckers, who has declared for the 2025 WNBA draft and is the projected #1 overall selection, wanted to finish her NCAA career with a national championship. In her legendary UConn Huskies career, she had accomplished amazing things, along with grabbing a couple of Huskies records. The only thing she was missing, from her NCAA career, was a national championship.
To help bring her team to the elite 8, Paige Bueckers scored a career-high 40 points against Oklahoma State. She became the first Husky to have 3 straight 30 point games. In the final four game versus UCLA, Bueckers had 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, and 16 points.
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In a shock to many, the championship game was a dominant performance by the UConn Huskies. With how talented both teams are, many expected this to be a close game. However, Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd, and Paige Bueckers had another idea. Sarah Strong had an outstanding performance, for her first NCAA tournament championship game with 15 rebounds, 5 assists, and 24 points. Azzi Fudd won the “most outstanding player” of the game with 5 rebounds and 24 points.
Paige Bueckers, for the last time ever in collegiate basketball, took the court and put on a show. With 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and 17 points in 38 minutes of play, Bueckers finished her collegiate career just how she started it, incredibly.
About a minute before the team would officially win the championship, Paige Bueckers left the court for the final time. The entire arena was out of their seats giving her a standing ovation, as she exited the court. She stopped first at legendary head coach, Geno Auriemma, who she famously is very close to. Bueckers and Auriemma hugged for a while, before Bueckers went on to hug the rest of the coaching staff and team. Auriemma, who isn’t known to get too emotional over his seniors leaving, was clearly very emotional.
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Paige Bueckers, a UConn basketball legend, finished her amazing college career in a way that could only be described as a “storybook ending”. After facing a lot of adversity in her college career, the one last thing that was missing from her trophy shelf was a national championship. In her last ever UConn game, she finally achieved that one thing.
While Dallas hasn’t officially made a selection, it is widely acknowledged that Dallas will take Bueckers first overall in just a few hours. Although her UConn career is over, she will always mean a lot to the program and their fans.
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