NEW YORK — Now that she’s no longer on his roster, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma can admit it: He misses Paige Bueckers.
During Bueckers’ five seasons in Storrs, UConn lost a total of 13 games when the star guard was on the court — as many as it lost in the previous eight years combined. The team never finished a regular season undefeated with Bueckers, and it was seeded No. 2 or lower in the NCAA Tournament for four straight years, the program’s longest streak without a 1-seed since the early 1990s.
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But as the Huskies prepare to enter the 2026 postseason with a perfect 31-0 record for the first time since 2018, Auriemma doesn’t endorse the idea that this team is better than the one Bueckers led to a national championship in 2025.
“I don’t know that you take one of the top five players in the WNBA off your team and say you’re better. I don’t know how I can justify saying that,” Auriemma said of Bueckers, who was the No. 1 WNBA Draft pick and a second-team All-WNBA selection in her rookie season. “There are a lot of times when I watch us play and I say, that wouldn’t have happened if we had Paige … We’re a much different team than we were last year, correct. But to say that we’re a better team than we were last year? I don’t buy that.”
It’s a sentiment Auriemma never would have shared while Bueckers was still in college. When she was asked Monday ahead of the Unrivaled semifinals at Barclays Center to recall the nicest compliment Auriemma gave her while at UConn, Bueckers paused for nearly 30 seconds to wrack her brain before admitting with a grin that she was drawing a blank. Hindsight makes it much easier for the Huskies coach to appreciate his former star.
“I lie to my players all the time, and she doesn’t play for me anymore, so I can say good things about her,” Auriemma joked Sunday night. “I like them when I’m recruiting them and when they leave.”
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The 2025-26 roster is the deepest UConn has had in years with nine players consistently in the rotation and six averaging at least seven points per game. After concluding the regular season on an 85-49 win over St. John’s on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, the Huskies hold the No. 1 scoring defense in the country, and they are second in scoring offense leading the nation in field goal and 3-point percentage as well as assists.
UConn also retained plenty of star power in sophomore forward Sarah Strong and redshirt senior guard Azzi Fudd, who are both playing at a significantly higher level than they were this time last season. Strong leads the team in every category except assists (where she trails point guard KK Arnold by just .5 per game) while averaging career-high shooting splits. Fudd is on the verge of a 50/40/90 season herself shooting 49% from the field, 45% beyond the arc and 95% at the free throw line, and she is 25 3-pointers away from tying the program’s single-season record. Fudd is also averaging career bests in assists and steals.
But Bueckers in March was different: The star guard graduated as UConn’s all-time leading scorer in the NCAA Tournament, averaging 24.8 points plus four rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.8 steals en route to the 2025 national championship. Her run was headlined by a 40-point performance in the Huskies’ Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma, which broke the program record for points in an NCAA Tournament game.
Beyond the eye-popping numbers, Bueckers’s superpower was her ability to manage a game, to smooth over mistakes and take control when necessary. That skillset was invaluable in win-or-go-home scenarios, and the Huskies don’t have an individual this year who can replicate that presence.
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Auriemma doesn’t doubt that his current team has the ability to bring home another championship, but he understands better than anyone just how much harder it’s going to be this time around.
“We have a few more players that we can that we can trust to put on the court, and that’s why I say that I think we’re different,” Auriemma said. “We have a different way of playing. We have different options, but none of those guys that I bring off the bench are Paige … Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of playing at a real high level that matches what that team did last year. Maybe that’s in the cards for them. I don’t know”
As for Bueckers herself, she isn’t worried about her Huskies. Auriemma may be feeling her absence, but from the outside looking in, Bueckers hasn’t seen the team miss a beat without her on the court.
“They’re so versatile in the way that they play, and they just have so many different pieces,” Bueckers said Monday. “No one player is like another, and they’re just super deep … They’re all amazing players, and they could average 20 on different teams, but they’ve all come together to play winning basketball, and Coach does a great job obviously of making that happen, so it’s been really exciting to watch.”
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