UConn’s elite and storied women’s basketball program lost in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament this past March, marking the first time since 2007 that the Huskies didn’t appear in the Final Four. If you’re keeping count at home, that’s 14 consecutive trips to the national semifinals.
Don’t count on UConn missing it for the second year in a row. And don’t be so quick to pencil-in an Iowa versus LSU rematch for the title.
UConn is expected to be mostly healthy to start this upcoming season, and if the Huskies are embarking on a revenge tour of any sort, it began on Tuesday when head coach Geno Auriemma spoke to reporters. Sure, Auriemma downplayed the idea of UConn being a “redeem team” or having “unfinished business” in a signature expletive-laden rant, but one thing the 11-time championship coach didn’t attempt to minimize or sugarcoat was the progress of Paige Bueckers in her road to recovery.
“This is the best she’s ever been, the strongest she’s ever been, the fittest she’s ever been. This is the most time she has spent working on her body, her mind, [and] just taking care of herself…
“I’ve never seen her better either at playing one-on-one, 2-on-2 or 3-on-3, what she’s doing in the weight room. Just her whole walk, the way she walks around, the way everybody looks up to her and the way everybody hangs on every word she says, there’s just a maturity about her.”
New best player in the country just dropped https://t.co/Di8NbkyD53
— Russell Steinberg (@Russ_Steinberg) June 20, 2023
The idea that Bueckers – the first freshman to ever win National Player of the Year in 2021 – is somehow better than she was before her injury is a terrifying proposition for the rest of women’s college basketball.
Consider that, before she tore her left ACL last summer, Bueckers powered UConn to a pair of Final Four appearances and two Big East championships. At full strength as a freshman in the 2020-21 season, she averaged 20 points, 5.8 assists, and 4.9 rebounds per game while nearly joining the 50-40-90 club, shooting 52.4 percent from the floor, 46.4 percent from 3-point land, and 86.9 percent from the charity stripe. Bueckers led the nation in win shares that season with 8.1.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate how the return of completely healthy Bueckers is to UConn. At her very best, she is one of the best players in all of college basketball. If Bueckers is – as Auriemma seems to expect and indicate – going to be totally healthy this season, then the Huskies are very much contenders for the national championship.
Because not only will this team have a healthy Azzi Fudd and a healthy Bueckers – as good as any one-two punch in the game – but they also bring back Big East Defensive Player of the Year Nika Muhl (who was also second in the nation in assists last season), Third-Team All-American Aaliyah Edwards, 6-foot-5 Jana El Alfy, highly touted recruit Ice Brady, veteran guards Caroline Ducharme and Aubrey Griffin, and a recruiting class that includes two top 15 players.
So, while Auriemma might not like these big expectations, UConn is absolutely a title contender this season if Bueckers is healthy, and she is undoubtedly a candidate to reclaim her National Player of the Year award.
The oddsmakers thinks so too:
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