Paige Bueckers goes nuclear to send UConn to the Elite Eight
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At halftime, UConn found itself in a precarious spot. In a Sweet Sixteen battle with a determined Oklahoma home team, the Huskies were down 36-32 at the midway point — a bad omen considering they entered Saturday’s contest 0-2 when trailing at the half this season.
When UConn got into the locker room, everyone took a beat to catch their breath before Paige Bueckers stood up and informed her teammates they weren’t going to lose.
“She was the one at halftime letting us know, ‘We’re a second half team. We got this. This is not the way our season’s ending,’” Azzi Fudd relayed.
Bueckers then went out and turned her words into reality. Over the final 20 minutes, she single-handedly out-scored Oklahoma 29-26 and finished with a career-best 40 points to send the Huskies through to the Elite Eight with an 82-59 victory.
“Paige was spectacular. That was as good a game as I've seen her play the whole time she's been here — at the most important time,” Auriemma said. “When you're a senior and you've been around as long as she has, this is what you're here to do. This is why you came here.”
Yet through three quarters, the coach once again found himself frustrated with the superstar. Although Bueckers had put up 21 points to that point — including 10 in the third — he still felt as if she were passing up too many good looks.
“There’s times when she has the ball and the defense knows she’s not gonna shoot it. I’m thinking, ‘Shoot it, you’re open!’ Hopefully in the fourth quarter she’ll just — I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to her,” Auriemma told ESPN’s Holly Rowe.
For five years, the coach has pushed Bueckers to be more aggressive and call her own number more often. In the fourth quarter, she finally listened — and went nuclear.
Bueckers took over, scoring UConn’s first 19 points in the fourth quarter — more than any other player on either team had in the entire game. When she exited for the final time with 3:08 remaining, she had racked up a staggering 40 points, becoming the fourth Husky to hit that mark and the first to do so in the NCAA Tournament.
“That was ridiculous,” Caroline Ducharme said.
“Unreal,” Kaitlyn Chen said.
“She was on fire,” Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk said.
The total even caught Auriemma by surprise.
“I didn’t know she had 40 until I got in the locker room,” he said.
UConn needed it from Bueckers, too. In the first half, the Huskies couldn’t get shots to fall, hitting just 29.7 percent from the field, while their other two stars struggled. Sarah Strong missed her first six shots and only had four points at the break while Fudd had six points on 2-7 shooting.
Bueckers didn’t exactly light it up either. She had 11 points but did so on 4-11 shooting and failed to score in the second quarter.
But out of the locker room, Bueckers stepped up when UConn needed her the most — just as she’s done all postseason. She opened the scoring in the second half with a 3-pointer and ended up taking 16 of the Huskies’ 36 shots the rest of the way.
“It’s not selfish, it’s what this team needs,” Fudd said.
“When it starts happening in the game, in the back of your mind you go, ‘Here it goes,’” Auriemma said. “Unless the other team does something, it's just going to keep piling on.”
Oklahoma didn’t do anything, as it turned out. During her fourth quarter explosion, Bueckers killed the Sooners by using ball screens to create space for pull-up jumpers. They never adjusted, so she kept taking them.
“She doesn't necessarily like to shoot the ball as much as she did today but circumstances were perfect because of how Oklahoma was playing,” Auriemma said.
Bueckers’ teammates understood what to do, too. Once she caught fire, they made sure to get her the ball and get out of the way.
“There's a couple times I'm just like, ‘Where's Paige? It's heat check time, they're all going in,’” Fudd said.
She was simply spectacular, simply unstoppable. When UConn found itself on the ropes, Bueckers told her teammates they weren’t going to lose then led by example in the second half. She made sure her career didn’t end on Saturday night.
“Little by little it's dawned on her that there is no next year,’ Auriemma said. “There is no, ‘I can get this anytime I want.’ You're going to have to get it now or it won't be available anymore.”
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