Fans welcomed home the UConn women’s basketball team on Monday after the Huskies defeated South Carolina 82-59 to secure the program’s 12th NCAA national title.
The moment was expected to be bittersweet, as fans said goodbye to graduating senior and team superstar Paige Bueckers. Speaking during the welcome-home rally at Gampel Pavilion, Bueckers got choked up and hid her face behind the brim of her cap as she discussed the end of her time with the team.
"It's an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the whole entire journey, the entire five years that I've been here. This place is a second home to me," Bueckers said. "I'm forever indebted to you guys; we are all forever indebted to you guys."
If you watched Sunday's championship game, you saw a sea of Husky fans cheering the historic moment wildly.
UConn Blog co-editor Daniel Connolly watched the moment in person. He told Connecticut Public’s “All Things Considered” that Husky nation elation was tempered by the realization that we were seeing the last of Bueckers in a Husky uniform.
“I just think the emotion that poured out of Paige when she came off the court and poured out of [Coach] Geno [Auriemma] as he hugged her for that last time in a UConn uniform all weekend, but especially after they killed UCLA on Friday, it really felt like this was becoming a thing of destiny,” Connolly told Connecticut Public.
Overcoming adversity
Connolly said he was struck by something Auriemma said after the win as he reflected on all the adversity his squad has weathered in recent years.
“For all they've been through the last five years, the [COVID] bubble, the injuries [to Bueckers and to star forward Azzi Fudd], the close calls, that it would have been really cruel for the basketball gods to get them one last time and have them lose in the championship,” Connolly said.
Rare NCAA tournament dominance
After losing games in December against two top-10 teams, Notre Dame and the University of Southern California, this version of UConn women’s basketball did not seem destined for greatness.
But Connolly said his confidence in this team grew once it became clear that Fudd was fully recovered from injuries that had forced her to miss 71 games during her UConn career.
“I knew there was a scenario where everything came together perfectly,” Connolly said.
That perfect scenario came to pass.
“UConn beat the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament by the largest margin of victory in Final Four history,“ Connolly said. “And then you beat the defending national champions, who, by the way, also had a pretty good argument to be the No. 1 overall seed.”
Bueckers on UConn’s Mount Rushmore?
In American parlance, the question of whether someone belongs on a Mount Rushmore has come to mean if the person is among the top four in their given group or field.
Connolly says he has no doubt that Bueckers, one of only four UConn women’s basketball players to win multiple National Player of the Year awards, has proven her worthiness.
“It's Diana [Taurasi], it's Maya [Moore], it's Stewie [Brianna Stewart] and it's Paige,” Connolly said.
Connolly said part of what sets Bueckers apart is that she excelled despite not having the surrounding cast that Taurasi, Moore and Stewart had.
“Coming up until this final game, she had done everything but win the national championship,” Connolly said. “So now she has the national championship and she is very, very easily one of the best four players in program history. However you want to rank them, that's a different story. But she's in that group.”
What’s next for UConn women and their coach
Beuckers and guard Kaitlyn Chen are both set to graduate. But with Fudd set to return, as well as Sarah Strong, the Big East Freshman of the Year, a second straight championship is possible next season, Connolly said.
“They're almost certainly going to be in the Final Four,” he said. “I'll predict that right now.”
At 71 years old, Auriemma is now the oldest coach in Division I men's or women's basketball to win a national championship. Connolly said he sees no indication that Auriemma is considering retirement.
“There's not a single bone in my body that is remotely worried that this is the year Geno hangs it up,” Connolly said.
