It was a special night for a fantastic Minnesota basketball player. Former Hopkins standout Paige Bueckers returned to the floor for UConn Wednesday night as the Huskies beat Dayton 102-58 in their season-opener.
Bueckers scored 8 points in her first real on-court action in 585 days after an ACL injury sidelined her all of last season. It was Bueckers’ first game since the Huskies loss to South Carolina in the 2022 national championship game at Target Center in Minneapolis. Her presence drew tremendous local interest in women's NCAA basketball.
Bueckers played only 21 minutes while on a minutes restriction imposed by the Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma.
"She's so anxious to play, and she wants to be out there, and she wants to do everything, be everywhere, do everything," says Auriemma. "And I just think that there's a certain amount of leadership we need from her."
Auriema adds that his star player needs to be patient in her return to live action.
"She wants to get it all back on each possession. I want to get the whole year back on each possession. We saw her in the first half trying so hard," said Auriemma.
Bueckers has been regarded as one of the best players in Minnesota girls' high school basketball history and was a prize recruit even for a traditional powerhouse like Connecticut and Auriemma. She was ranked the number one player in the 2020 class by ESPN.
She was a dynamic freshman, winning national Player of the Year honors and leading Uconn to the Final Four. Since then, it's been a series of injuries for the superstar.
But an offseason surgery slowed her down going into her sophomore season. On December 5, Bueckers injured her left knee while dribbling the ball up the court in a win over Notre Dame, and had to be carried off the floor by teammates. It was a tibial fracture plus a meniscus tear that required more surgery. It took until late-February to get back on the court but her return helped propel UConn to the National Championship game where they eventually fell to South Carolina.
In August of 2022, during a pick-up game, she tore her ACL in the left knee and that was it for her season. She later announced she would skip entering the WNBA Draft and be back for her junior year at UConn.
The Minnesota native will be back in the Twin Cities on Sunday, November 22 when the Gophers host the second-ranked Huskies at Williams Arena.