TAMPA, Fla. — The basketball world, and large segments of the world beyond, will have its eyes trained on the Amalie Center on Friday night. Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and the UConn women’s basketball team, Lauren Betts and her teammates at UCLA all have the same goal, only one can achieve it.
The other will have to process not achieving it. This is what sports has always been about, but the striving to win, the quest for perfection, and the pressure from an outside world that bores in on the best athletes, magnified by the internet and social media microscope can be overwhelming. For women’s college players, the level of scrutiny is fairly new and could exceed anything for which they were prepared. This is all added to the pressure each puts on herself, as perfectionists at the art of basketball.
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“It’s still a learning process,” said Bueckers, who is finishing up her fifth and presumably final season at UConn, still searching for a national championship, “learning to care less about the opinions of others and trying to please everyone. For every 500 people that love you, there’s going to be five that hate you. So it’s just focusing on the people that are important. And obviously there’s a saying, like, ‘you don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from.’ … Make sure you’re listening to the right voices.”
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It can be too much for even the best and the strongest athletes to handle alone. Bueckers and Fudd have both worked with a sports psychologist this season and found it helpful. UCLA’s Lauren Betts, 6 feet 7, a top recruit in the country like Bueckers and Fudd, took an 18-day break in January 2024 to focus on her mental health, and has been open in discussing her mental health, helping to remove any stigmas still attached in 2025.
“I always try to tell myself that I’m so much more than basketball,” Betts said. “I think I always talk about how I really value the relationships I have with the people around me in my closed circle. I’m a daughter. I’m a teammate. I’m a sister. I’m a friend. Just reminding myself that, yes, basketball is what I do, but it’s not who I am at the end of the day. And all of this is amazing. But when I go back home to my teammates and my family, that’s really what matters to me.”
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Betts has been playing some of the most dominant basketball of her career in this postseason. At UCLA, she has taken advantage of a “mind gym,” the Bruins’ mental conditioning program.
“First and foremost, going to a program where people love you off the floor,” she said. “It’s something I’m really grateful for. This program, they not see me as a basketball player but value the person I am as well. I think it’s made life so much easier. Handling pressure, leaning on the people around you and not carrying it all by yourself because it’s really difficult.”
As seasons and careers reach a climax in the Final Four this weekend, phrases like “now or never” or “do or die” or “defining moment” come easily to the lips, or the fingers tapping a keyboard or iPhone. But can players who have done this much, come this far, ever really be considered “failures?” Maybe to outside influencers.
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“Not winning it doesn’t really change your legacy, who you are,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “But if you’re Paige and you don’t think like that, there’s nothing I can do to change that. I think maybe the healthiest thing is, acknowledging it. What’s the definition of courage? It’s grace under fire, being able to perform under the greatest pressure when you are scared that it might be over, what if we lose? Blah, blah, blah. Hardly any of us have the ability to perform like that under those circumstances.”
Turning off, or ignoring social media is a solution all the players talk about, but in many cases, the brand strength that has led to their stardom, and the name-image-likeness revenue that comes with it, started with enormous followings on social media. Betts’ career started off with a disappointing freshman season at Stanford, and took off after she transferred to UCLA. Fudd followed Bueckers to UConn in 2021, and her career has been truncated by various knee injuries. After she returned from her latest injury this season, she sought some help with dealing with all she’s been through.
“There’s a huge mental health component on our campus and in our athletic department,” Auriemma said. “Getting them to take advantage of it is the key, because what kid wants to admit, ‘hey, I’ve got some issues.’ So first we have to identify, this is what we’re dealing with here, I’m not equipped to help you with this, but we’ve got someone here who can help.’ Getting them to admit it, getting them to understand it’s okay.’”
UConn’s victory over Southern California in the regional final on Monday was a display of mental toughness on Fudd’s part. She has always been a perfectionist with her shooting. She missed her first nine shots, but took two crucial 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter and made them.
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“I think I’ve grown by really understanding what’s important and what’s not,” Fudd said. “So people outside, they’re not a part of my inner circle, not a part of my every-day, part of who really matters. I don’t care what they think, their opinions of me, what they’re saying. At the end of the day, what they say, how they feel does not affect me. You know outside noises don’t matter, but sometimes it still bothers you. Staying present has really helped me, to not focus on the past, things I wish I could change but can’t, and focusing on right now.”
What is “right now” is the chance to make history. UCLA is in the Final Four for the first time, UConn for the 24th and is going for its 12th championship. One group of stars will move on to the championship game, starting the process all over again, the other will have to process the disappointment, put it in perspective.
Bueckers tops the list when it comes to scrutiny, the expectations to do great things with the world watching, and despite the presence of great players on the other side focused on preventing it. This is supposed to be her moment … but what if it’s not?
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“Before you even get here, you kind of know the pressures that exist by committing to UConn,” Bueckers said. “So by making that decision to want to come here and try to live up to that and be a part of a legendary program, it’s a decision you have to make even before you step on campus. Obviously there are expectations here. And anything less than a national championship is really a disappointment. As players, that’s what you play for and what you want to live up to. And the expectations and the pressure, it’s a privilege. So we all look at it as such.”
