Paige Bueckers ran off the court at Spokane Arena with a smile splitting her face and a Final Four hat perched atop her head. She waved to the crowd and headed for the UConn locker room.
The second-seeded Huskies had just beaten No. 1 seeded USC on Monday night behind Bueckers’ 31 points. Little girls shrieked and chanted her name alongside their mothers. Fans wore her famous No. 5 jersey. One held a sign saying she’d woken at 3 a.m. to fly to Washington to see Bueckers play. Another waved an American flag bearing an image of Bueckers’ face.
“Yeah, I don’t get it. I don’t get it,” Huskies coach Geno Auriemma quipped, because if he doesn’t rib his superstar, who else will?
“But it’s crazy.”
This is the orbit Bueckers occupies. With her must-see highlights (including a career-high 40 points in the Sweet 16), 2.2 million Instagram followers and NIL deals with companies such as Gatorade, she’s one of the most beloved players her sport has ever seen. The most famous ponytail in college hoops.
Paige Bueckers in Spokane: – 35.5 PPG – 55.6 FG% – 62.5 3FG% – 4.5 RPG – 3.5 APG – 2.0 BPG – 3.5 SPG and that’s why she’s your Spokane Region 4 Most Outstanding Player
But with that level of attention comes an avalanche of pressure. No player in the tournament carries as much weight on her shoulders as Bueckers, UConn’s only superstar without a national championship.
“When you have all that, sometimes there’s a tendency to become, ‘What if I can’t live up to it?’ That’s the biggest worry that I always have,” Auriemma said. “That if a kid gets overwhelmed by the attention and the adulation and the expectation, then you’re always scared, what if at some point she wakes up one morning and goes, ‘What if I can’t live up to it?'”
But Bueckers?
“The sucker never does that.”
That’s because Paige Bueckers — the first freshman to ever win the Naismith award and the presumed No. 1 WNBA Draft pick later this month — lives for these moments.
“It’s so easy for the pressure that she’s under to come through or let that affect you and she doesn’t at all. You never see her waver,” UConn guard and close pal Azzi Fudd said. “I never thought it felt cocky but just confident enough.
“She could have the worst game, but she’s telling herself, ‘The basket was twisted. The basket was left, or lower.’ She’s honestly delusional. But she convinces herself (of) these things. And she’s still the best.”
Bueckers was in middle school, playing against the No. 2 team in the state on former Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff’s varsity team, when he first started to realize she was no ordinary prospect.
“She came off the bench and hit eight 3s in a row for us to win the game,” Cosgriff said. “And I’ll never forget it because when she was in eighth grade, in the one-on-one conferences I had with her, I said, ‘Paige, if you could go to one place and play basketball, where would it be?’ And she goes, ‘UConn.”‘
In that sense, part of Bueckers’ ability to deliver in clutch situations and handle whatever expectations are thrust upon her may simply be the byproduct of clarity: Knowing exactly what she wants and how she plans to get it.
As a fifth-grader, Bueckers was always the friend who planned sleepovers, often dictating how things would go to her friends and volunteering to call their parents to fill them in on what she’d concoct.
“I’m like, ‘Girl, you can’t just be setting up sleepovers at other people’s houses!’” Tara Starks, Bueckers’ grassroots coach, recalled. “But … nothing really stepped in the way of that.”
Or maybe she just really is that confident, as Fudd suggested.
“I had a little get-together at the house for my daughter’s birthday, and I think my daughter might have been turning 21, somewhere in there,” Starks said. “And Paige came over.
“‘Dreams and Nightmares’ came on — that Meek Mill song. … And she starts rapping.”
Bueckers was 14. She rapped every word at the top of her lungs in front of Starks’ family and a group of her friends from Hopkins. By the end of the song, everyone in the living room had their hands up, jumping around, ready to party.
“(My family’s) looking like, ‘Man what the hell is this?'”
Bueckers was led Hopkins High to a state title. (Aaron Lavinsky / Star Tribune via Getty Images)
She is by far the best girls basketball player to come out of Minnesota, coach Liz Carpentier said.
Just how much press and media and publicity that she’s gained … she handles everything with class and grace.
To handle the stress, Bueckers has her go-tos. She loves to read, particularly fiction, and has a shelf of books in her room. She’s a Wordle enthusiast, racing a handful of teammates every day to see who can finish the popular word game first. Gospel music helps calm her down pregame. And cutting out social media has been helpful — even if she occasionally cheats.
Should Bueckers win a national championship this weekend, she’d complete the final missing piece of her UConn puzzle. She has made it clear that a national championship is her expectation. Now it’s up to her to handle the hype for two more games.
“I always had this feeling that she wasn’t going to let us lose,” Starks said of Bueckers’ grassroots days. “And that’s kind of the feeling that I have right now.
“I just have that feeling that she’s not gonna let this team lose.
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