The 2023-24 season has been brutal for UConn. The Huskies have lost players to season-ending injuries (Caroline Ducharme, Jana El Alfy, Azzi Fudd, Aubrey Griffin, and Ayanna Patterson) and have missed out on seeing Paige Bueckers and Fudd — back-to-back No. 1 recruits in 2020 and 2021 — play a full year together yet again.
But there will be one more chance for the best friends to live up to that promise. On Senior Night against Georgetown, Bueckers announced that she will return to Storrs for a fifth season, much to the delight of an uproarious home crowd.
Bueckers took the mic fourth after Nika Mühl, Aaliyah Edwards and Griffin, who also announced she is foregoing the WNBA Draft to play another year at UConn. After thanking the fans and revealing that “these four years didn’t go how I planned or how I wanted it to go,” Bueckers gave the people what they wanted when she said, “Unfortunately this will not be my last Senior Night here at UConn because I’m coming back.”
“Unfortunately this will not be my last Senior NIght”
PAIGE BUECKERS WILL RETURN TO STORRS NEXT YEAR! pic.twitter.com/0F9hS04Rof
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) February 17, 2024
Bueckers was eligible to declare for the 2023 WNBA Draft since she turned 22 during that calendar year but told The Athletic…