Paige Bueckers’ trash-talking swagger is ready for final March Madness with UConn before WNBA
The University of Connecticut women’s basketball team hasn’t won a national championship since 2016, an absolute eternity in Storrs.
Paige Bueckers has that final job with the Huskies before she leaves for the WNBA and a likely honor as the No. 1 overall selection.
UConn’s task begins in real earnest Monday night in the Big East championship game against Creighton, before a likely top-two NCAA seed and a journey to cut the nets down.
If Sunday’s semifinal against Villanova is any indication, look out. She scored 21 of her 23 points in the first half, and we’ll let you read her trash talking with your own eyes here.
Don’t get Paige Bueckers started 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/1GoErzD4WW
— WNBA Got Game (@wnbagotgame) March 9, 2025
“It was the first time in quite some while where she actually just took the ball and wanted to play one-on-one with whoever was guarding her, and I think that’s what we’ve been striving for,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma told the Hartford Courant.
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Bueckers is one of the great players in UConn history, and it’s unfair to blame her entirely for not winning a national title in an era of widespread growth in women’s college basketball, especially given a missed season in 2022-23 due to injury.
But it certainly would be the fitting final chapter for Bueckers. She has averaged 19.5 points and 4.6 assists per game in her UConn career, and could probably have had more than that if more of the Huskies’ games called for four quarters of her dominance.
Bueckers’ big game Sunday was played in front of members of the Dallas Wings front office. They hold the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft next month.
She currently ranks sixth on the UConn women’s basketball all-time scoring charts (2,266) and could pass Katie Lou Samuelson (2,342), Tina Charles (2,346) and maybe Napheesa Collier (2,401). Only Braenna Stewart (2,676) and Maya Moore (3,036) are totally out of reach on the most impressive list of women’s basketball players you’ll find at any college.
All of those players above Bueckers have at least one national championship, though. Now she hopes it’s her turn.
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