She lunged forward and then took a step back. It was over, a three-pointer to put the game beyond the Oklahoma Sooners’ reach. And now the UConn Huskies are in the Elite Eight for the eighteenth time in the last nineteen seasons. And for the constant performer who led them, a standing ovation, please? The Huskies needed Paige Bueckers, and she delivered when it mattered.
Favorites in the contest, the Huskies were behind at halftime. Statistically, the game was Oklahoma’s. The Sooners were a perfect 22-0 this season in games they were winning at halftime. But Paige took control of the situation and ‘swished’ her team out of trouble. Scoring 29 points in the second half, going 12-for-16 from the floor. She put a total of 40 on board in the team’s 82-59 victory- a UConn record in the NCAA tournament. Paige Bueckers nearly scored half of her team’s total. Yet, when asked about the performance, Paige turned the spotlight away from herself.
“People see the points, but a large attribution to Sarah, Jana, Ice, the way they were screening for me, getting me open, getting me looks,” Paige said in a post-game interview. “Like everybody sees the points but nobody sees the screen set, the passes that found me. So, it’s I guess an individual point total but it’s really a team effort.”
Well said. The WNBA-bound star pointed out important aspects of the game that contributed to the win. Watching the game footage, you can see Sarah Strong setting bone-crushing screens, Jana El Alfy battling in the paint, and Ice Brady opening lanes with subtle positioning. These moments don’t show up in the box score, but they were the stepping stones for Bueckers’ skyscraper of a performance.
“People see the points, but a large attribution to Sarah, Jana, Ice, the way they were screening for me.”
Paige Bueckers credits her teammates for helping her get 40 points tonight: pic.twitter.com/uNz4Vi8K28
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) March 29, 2025
And well, Sarah did deliver a double-double stat line with 11 boards and 11 points. Her offensive rebounds went straight to Paige, who capitalized on the floor space available. Jana El Alfy and Ice Brady combined 24 minutes on the floor. They scored 0 points, but their primary task was to provide shooters, particularly to in-rhythm Paige. It’s truly a symbiosis. So, they all epitomized the “small things” Auriemma praised post-game: “Some people can do big things … and that’s Paige’s role on this team … We have other players that their role is to do smaller things, and if they all do their small things really, really well, we add them up to the big things that Paige is going to do.”
Bueckers was passing with flying colors when it came to doing the big thing, thanks to her teammates who elevated her. Shooting nearly 60% from the field, Paige drained 6-of-8 from the range. And coach Auriemma, who has been showing a bit of tough love, was all too pleased about it. “Paige was spectacular,” Auriemma said. “That was as good a game as I’ve seen her play the whole time she’s been here. At the most important time.”
Interestingly, the coach was encouraging Paige to take shots and even cheekily mentioned the same in an on-court interview with ESPN’s Rowe. “It’s better, but there’s times when she has the ball and the defenses; they know she’s not going to shoot it.” Auriemma said at the end of the third quarter. “And I’m thinking, ‘Shoot it! You’re open!’ So hopefully in the fourth quarter – I don’t know, maybe you should talk to her!”
Paige listened to him. Scored all the opening points in the fourth quarter, taking her tally to 40, which handed her multiple records.
A record-setting night for Paige Bueckers
There is a reason she is called ‘Paige Buckets’. She has even filed a trademark application for it, and rightly so. Paige Bueckers is a scorer, and there will be no one else like her in Women’s basketball.
Paige’s seventh career 25-point game in the NCAA tournament surpasses Maya Moore’s total for the most by a UConn player in the last 25 years. This was also a UConn Huskies’ NCAA tournament single-game record for points scored from the Women’s team. Adding her 34-point game against South Dakota in the second round, Paige is now the first UConn player in the last 25 years to record back-to-back 30-point games in the same NCAA tournament.
Now that she has also surpassed Tina Charles and moved into fourth on UConn’s all-time scoring list in the win, she will be aiming to finish her college career with an NCAA championship trophy on her resume. With just three more games left, can Paige continue her dominance on the floor? Win the title before entering the WNBA?
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