The thing about legends? They just can’t stop proving their greatness. See Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma.
This UConn national championship belongs to more than just Paige Bueckers, though. Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd stepped up.
Geno Auriemma after 12th national championship: ‘These players make me want to hang in there.’
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.
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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.
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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 seconds remaining, Bueckers exited the court for a final time in a Huskies uniform. Auriemma stood waiting in the sideline, arms open for an embrace that was in no hurry to end. Bueckers buried her face in her coach’s shoulder, overcome with emotion.
“I love that man more than words can describe,” Bueckers said in her televised postgame interview.
Consider the feeling mutual.
“They’ve all been gratifying, don’t get me wrong,” Auriemma said during his interview with Holly Rowe, “but this one here, because of the way it came about and what’s been involved, it’s been a long time since I’ve been that emotional when a player has walked off the court.”
Geno Auriemma: ‘Never been happier.’ Make it 12 national titles
Unlike some of Auriemma’s past national championships, this result couldn’t be considered a foregone conclusion. Two months before the confetti fell on these Huskies, they listened to “Rocky Top” blare at the end of a loss on Feb. 6 at Tennessee. Bueckers struggled with her shot that night, and she lacked the necessary support to fend off the hungry Lady Vols.
UConn exited Knoxville with its third loss – all to good teams, sure, but the type of opponents the Huskies would need to beat to win the national championship.
And then the switched flipped. As Auriemma put it, his players decided after that loss to Tennessee that they didn’t just like each other. They loved each other.
Ten days after the Huskies lost to Tennessee, they smashed South Carolina, evidence that they could not only hang with the elite, they could beat them.
“I’ve just never been happier than I have been the past couple of months, coaching a team,” Auriemma told Rowe.
Bueckers quickly regained her form after that Tennessee loss. Fudd got hot, too. Strong kept ascending, bearing little resemblance to a freshman and looking much more like a polished No. 1 WNBA draft pick she’s destined to be, in time.
“All three of them complement each other so well,” Auriemma told Rowe. “They all have such unique skill sets.”
They caught fire at different times of the tournament. Bueckers, from the second round through the Elite Eight, scored more than 30 points in three straight games. Strong dazzled all tournament but managed to save her best for the finish, with 24 points and 15 rebounds to tame the Gamecocks.
Fudd got hot in the Final Four against UCLA. She stayed hot against South Carolina, tying Strong with 24 points. Best known for her 3-point shot, Fudd showed her midrange game, ability to finish at the rim, and sticky-handed defense against South Carolina.
Staley and her team had zero answers for Strong and Fudd, and the Huskies guarded the Gamecocks as if the national championship depended on their defense.
If the Gamecocks came into this with the mindset that they had to make someone other than Bueckers beat them, well, consider it done.
A complete performance, this was, a performance that left no doubt as to who had become the nation’s best team.
“These players make me want to hang in there every day,” Auriemma, 71, said.
Auriemma hung around long enough to hug Bueckers, one of his favorite players ever, in the final seconds of a championship and to celebrate his program being back on top.
Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.