Paige under pressure? Stories from Bueckers’s past show that they can deliver for Uconn

Paige Bueckers ran a court in Arena Spokane with a smile that divided her face and sat on her head for the last four hat. She waved to the crowd and headed for the dressing room Uconn.

The second deployed Huskies just defeated USC on Monday evening for 31 points Bueckers. The girls shouted and sang her name next to their mothers. The fans wore her famous jersey No. 5. One kept a sign that she woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning to fly to Washington to see how Bueckers played. Another waved the American flag bearing a picture of Bueckers’ face.

“Yeah, I don’t understand.

“But it’s crazy.”

This is Orbit Bueckers. With its highlights, which you have to see (including 40 points in a 40 -point career in Sweet 16), 2.2 million instagram followers and zero agreements with companies like Gatorade, is one of the most popular players ever seen. The most famous tail on College Hoops.

Paige Bueckers in Spokane:

– 35.5 ppg
– 55.6 fg%
– 62.5 3fg%
– 4.5 rpg
– 3.5 APG
– 2,0 HDP
– 3.5 SPG

And that’s why it’s your Spokane region 4 most important player pic.twitter.com/chmugumajfy

– UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnwbb) April 1 2025

But with this level of attention comes an avalanche of pressure. No player in the tournament carries as much weight on his shoulders as Bueckers, Uconn’s only SuperStar without the National Championship.

“When you have it all, sometimes there is a tendency to happen,” What if I can’t live? “That’s the biggest concern I always have,” Auriemma said. “That if the child is amazed at the attention and admiration and expectations, then you always worry about what if one morning wakes up and goes,” What if I can’t live? “”

But Bueckers?

“Socker never does it.”

This is because Paige Bueckers – the first newcomer to have ever won the NaiSmith Award, and the expected selection No. 1 WNBA at the end of this month – lives for these moments.

“It is so easy for pressure that it is under exploring, or let it affect you and she doesn’t. You never see her,” said Uconn and close friend Azzi Fudd. “I never thought it felt inflated, but quite confident.”

“She could have the worst game, but it is said,” The basket was twisted. The basket has been left or lower. “He’s sincerely misleading.

“In the eighth grade of playing varsity”

Bueckers was in high school and played against team 2 in the state on the former Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff’s Varsity team when he first realized that he was not an ordinary prospect.

“It came out of the bench and hit eight 3s in a row to win the game,” Cosgriff said. “And I will never forget it, because when she was in the eighth grade, at the conferences I had with her, I said,” Paige, if you could go to one place and play basketball where it would be? “And he goes,” Uconn. ” ”

Cosgriff called the then assistant coach Maris Moseley on the spot to let her know that she would soon have a film in her delivered post office.

In this sense, part of the Bueckers’ ability to supply the clutch and manage all the expectations that push it on it can simply be a by -product of clarity: knowing exactly what it wants and how it plans to get it.

As a fifth comparator, Bueckers has always been a friend who planned to sleep and often dictated how things would go to her friends, and voluntarily call their parents to fill them with what she invented.

“I’m glad,” girl, you can’t just set up sleeping in other people’s houses! “” But … but it really did not approach it. “

Or maybe he really is that Self -confident, as he suggested Fudd.

“I had a little meeting in my daughter’s birthday house, and I think my daughter could be 21,” Starks said. “And Paige came.”

“Dreams and nightmares” came – the meek Mill Song. … and she starts rapping. “

Bueckers was 14 years old. She raised every word on top of her lungs in front of Stark’s family and a group of her friends from Hopkins. At the end of the song, everyone in the living room had their hands up, jumping around, ready for a party.

“(My family) looks like,” Man, what the hell is that? “Starks said with a laugh.” I spend time with her on a daily basis. And I think, “What in hell? How do you know this song?” “

“It sounds like something she would do,” Taylor Woodson said.

Paige Bueckers led Hopkins high to the state title. (Aaron Lavinsky / Star Tribune through Getty Images)

“Diana Taurasi Reivented”

Karl-Anthony Towns is the first to admit that he was not entirely aware of the dynamics in the game when Hopkins High met Wayzata High in March 2020 (just before the outbreak of Pandemie Covid-19).

In her fifth year with Minnesota Timberwolves, all cities knew at that time that she had a day off and a perfect way to spend it.

“I had time to really look at (Bueckers),” Towns said, now with the New York Knicks. “And I wanted to go see that it would happen.”

The towns and several Timberwolves teammates, including D’Angelo Russell, plunged into Hopkins on Thursday night, where Bueckers and Royals had a lot on the line against Wayzata. Both were the top five teams in the state, and Hopkins boasted Bueckers, just like the minnesota Golden Gophers Stráž Amaya Battle and Woodson, now-Stanford striker Nuna Agara and former guardian Arizona Maya Nnaji. Wayzata also had three future gofers in Mara Braun, Annika Stewart and Brynn Senden.

If the Hopkins proceeded to play a state title, it would be because they delivered the elderly Bueckers in annual settlement.

“Geno was in the stalls. … there were minnesota Timberwolves. There were four or 5,000 people,” Cosgriff said.

“Paige took it over.”

In the middle of the match, Hopkins increased by 6 points, Cosgriff recalled. Trojan horses – who were previously in the defense of the zone – switched to man and hoped for some answers.

“Paige,” Cosgriff and his assistants asked. “What do you want to do?”

Bueckers – whose Midrange game is one of the most beautiful memory in basketball – has chosen a simple Royals game called “Option 1.” A tall ball screen that would put the ball in her hands and let her cook.

For the rest of the night, every property operated and after a shot to the melody 33 points-or “more points than the weather outside”, drilled.

“He can make the old coach of the ball look pretty damn good,” Cosgriff said. “She was like,” Give me a ball, pull hell out of the way. “That’s what it was.

Meanwhile, Wayzata had no answers.

“Sometimes you can make a box and one, and it can be effective, but not with Paige Bueckers,” said coach of assistant Wayzata Assistant-head Julie Stewart.

“It didn’t work with her.”

The cities sat in respect when he chewed on the box of Popcorn’s courts and took it all in. Pandemic soon canceled Bueckers’ chance to win the second consecutive state championship on the heels of the 62-game, but saw enough: enough: He saw enough:

“” Is really damn good, “Towns recalled.

“I thought I was watching Diana Taurasi appeared.”

“Is by far the best”

Three months earlier, Liz Carpentier, head coach in Farmington (Minn.) High, remembers a similar experience.

Unlike Wayzata, Farmington was not in the Hopkins section. At the beginning of December 2019, the Tigers of Bueckers and Royals hosted in a non -non -conference match. But just like Wayzata, Farmington had a lot of talents in itself. Yet it was obvious who all came to see.

“There was no room. The place was completely packed,” Carpentier said. “The only event was the most fans we put in the gym. Boys’ basketball, girl basketball, volleyball – in Farmington has never been such an atmosphere.”

Hopkins and Farmington kept the game for most of the first half. The boys on the Carpentier training team had explosive Bueckers that week and Farmington had a well planned game.

“When you look at her game, her first priority is to engage her teammates. Then he will certainly take the games in these high -pressure situations,” Carpentier said. “In the end we lost this game by 19 or 20.”

Hopkins defeated Farmington 77-52 at night, when Bueckers had 31 points per 14 goals to go along with five assists and four theft. Her basketball IQ gave the tigers fits all night – he knew how to perfectly read the ball screens, when to pull out and when to kick.

But equally impressive for Carpentier was how much it seemed that Bueckers had, despite how many eyes were on it and the pressure that came up with the transmission of Minnesota on the back. What she looked free. As every autograph for every little girl in the gym she stayed behind.

“It’s by far the best girl basketball player who came out of Minnesota,” Carpentier said. “How many prints and media and publicity she has gained … with class and grace can do everything.”

“That’s what she wanted”

When Bueckers and Uconn prepare for the best UCLA seeds on Friday evening at the Amalia Arena, the outer expectations will reach the peak for a 23 -year -old man who is just 80 minutes from the potential national title.

In her corner, she is trying not to raise what’s on the line – although Starks felt that Uconn would be in Tampa when she secretly bought the last four tickets a month ago.

“Sometimes I am afraid of pressure and all the things that are happening. I don’t know if I can do it at that age,” Starks said. “(But) I think the reality of the situation is what she wanted. And although it is nervous, it can be stressful, it could be a lot-it is, … Exactly what I wanted my basketball career.”

To handle stress, Bueckers has its go-tos.

She loves reading, especially fiction, and has a book of books in her room. He’s Wordle, he races with a handful of teammates every day to see who can first complete the popular verbal game. The Gospel music helps her to reassure her priority. And the cutting of social media was useful – although he sometimes cheats.

“She likes to watch her peaks and her adjustments,” Fudd said, laughing while Bueckers set out. “So he’ll probably try to steal my phone later.”

If the Bueckers won the National Championship this weekend, she finished the last missing piece of her puzzle Uconn. They made clear that her expectations are the National Championship. Now it is up to her to handle the hype for the other two games.

“I’ve always felt that he won’t let us lose,” Starks said about Bueckers’ local days. “And that’s the feeling I have right now.”

“I just have the feeling that he won’t let this team lose.”

– AthleticJames L. Edwards III contributed to this report.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb, John Bradford / Athletic;; Photo: Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)