SPOKANE, Wash. — When Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma sat down at the dais after punching their ticket to Tampa for the Final Four, Auriemma pointed to the box score on a sheet of paper. Not to the fact that she played all 40 minutes or scored a game-high 31 points. Not to her 50 percent shooting from beyond the 3-point line or her nine fouls drawn or her two blocks or her six assists.
He pointed to her four turnovers and shook his head. “What was that?” he asked her.
She quickly pointed to the column next over from the turnovers — a game-high four steals.
“Look,” she said. “I got it back. I got four steals.”
He laughed because he knew she wasn’t wrong (though he likely wouldn’t go as far to say she was right). Bueckers got back plenty in that game for herself and her teammates, smoothed over the rough patches and was the player who, whenever Auriemma was too deep into the team’s mistakes, could draw him back.
“Her mentality is always: This is what I did to help us win. I’m not worried about what the other stuff was,” Auriemma said. “I’ve admired that in her forever.”
The 24th Final Four for Geno Auriemma and the Huskies pic.twitter.com/RIeI1I74dX
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) April 1, 2025
In that way, Bueckers is very much the yin…
