PAIGE VIEWS
Former UConn stars Taurasi, Bird impressed with Bueckers: She has that ‘It’ factor
Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi were shoulder to shoulder, both wearing USA Basketball gear, Tuesday when the question was posed.
Who is the best basketball player in the world?
Bird pointed at Taurasi, sitting to her left.
Taurasi just smiled and said, “There are lot of good players.”
Bird: “That’s what you say when you’re the best player.”
Taurasi’s comments last week to “Togethxr” led to this moment. She had recalled seeing Bueckers play for the first time and telling wife Penny Taylor and UConn coach Geno Auriemma that Bueckers was “the best player in basketball already.”
Tuesday’s clarification came in typical Taurasi style.
“For the bozos that thought I meant (all of) basketball … COLLEGE basketball,” Taurasi said.
“C’mon people. Like, c’mon.”
Bird: “She’s the best player in college. I agree with that statement. And I feel like every WNBA team would, if they could, somehow trade to get whoever’s 2024 (No. 1) pick right now if they could.”
Bird and Taurasi were speaking during a press conference at a Team USA mini-camp that began Tuesday in San Antonio.
The senior national team is preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. Bird, 40, and Taurasi, 38, are part of a 32-player pool and looking to win a fifth gold medal together.
Much of the conversation, though, was about their UConn roots, this year’s UConn team and UConn’s latest standout player, Bueckers, a national player of the year candidate as a freshman.
“If you watch the games, you know how good she is,” Taurasi said. “She has that ‘it’ factor. She has this thing that comes to her very naturally in pressure situations, big moments. That’s when you know you have a really, really good player. When the stakes are the highest or the pressure is the highest and everyone knows you have to do it and you actually get it done. She’s been so impressive on so many fronts.”
Said Bird: “You watch Paige play and she’s incredibly skilled. There’s
really not much she doesn’t do well. So for her, it’s just going to be about continuing to perfect those things. As a basketball player you just always want to be great at the things you’re good at. You want to just keep improving, keep getting better. For her, it’s just always going to be about, she’s going to be the hunted. I think for the remainder of her career, and kudos to her because she’s put herself on that pedestal, everyone’s going to want to take her down. And that is where the challenge will lie.”
Bird and Taurasi were teammates for two seasons at UConn, and part of one of the best starting lineups in the sport’s history on an undefeated team in 2002 that incuded Swin Cash, Asjha Jones and Tamika Williams. They watched on Monday as the Huskies defeated Baylor to reach the Final Four for a 13th consecutive time, a game that ended with a controversial no-call as UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia NelsonOdoda met Baylor shooter DiJonai Carrington in the final second.
“There’s going to be people who answer this question saying there was no foul,” Bird said. “There’s going to be people answering this question saying it was definitely a foul. My take on it? Everybody is talking about it, and that’s what matters. I turned on First Take this morning and they were debating it. You go on Twitter, everybody has an opinion. Having story lines and conversations surrounding women’s basketball, even if it’s a little controversial, even if it gets a little heated, that’s good for the growth of the game. So I’m excited to see that and, you know what, if there’s no call there’s no
foul, right?”
Taurasi: “Obviously I have a little bit of a UConn bias. I love the way Baylor played. They played hard. Obviously when DiDi (Richards) got hurt it changed the whole complexion of the game. What Connecticut was able to do in that third quarter, going into the fourth, was pretty amazing. But was it a foul? … I mean, if I was the one shooting I’d be pretty mad right now.”
The national team has won six consecutive gold medals. The Tokyo Olympics were originally scheduled for last summer but pushed back a year due to the pandemic. Bird and Taurasi have won gold together in 2004 under Van Chancellor (Athens), in 2008 under Anne Donovan (Beijing) and in 2012 and 2016 under Auriemma
(London, Rio de Janeiro).
“We’re talking about 20 years of USA Basketball, the pressure, the commitment, the time you put into it,” Taurasi said. “Anything can happen and you never know what path that will take you, but just having the opportunity to be here in camp and looking forward a little bit to Tokyo, and hopefully it happens, I think it’s going to be a culmination of a lot of things, all the hard work we’ve put in individually, collectively. Realistically speaking, if we get a chance to go to Tokyo, this is probably the last one. There always comes a time where I think you really have to look at the situation for yourself and for USA Basketball. If all goes well in Tokyo, I’ll be happy.”
Taurasi is the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer and Bird leads the league in
career assists.
“It’s hard to put into words what being a fivetime Olympian would mean,” Bird said. “For me and maybe for us, there wasn’t a WNBA growing up. This was the end all, be all, for what a women’s basketball player could do. It was, if you go to college you could go to the Final Four and then the Olympics. That was really it. To achieve it one time, it was like a dream come true. To have a chance to do it five times, it’s continually fulfilling that dream. It’s also saying we were able to stay at the top of our game and win medal for our country, represent our country consistently for a long stretch, and that’s something to be proud of.”