The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Breaking down UConn’s 2020 recruiting class
On Wednesday, the UConn women’s basketball team officially announced its 2020 recruiting class, which includes the best high school prospect in the country — Minnesota point guard Paige Bueckers.
Joining Bueckers in Storrs will be two other fivestar prospects in Aaliyah Edwards and Mir McLean, as well as Piath Gabriel and Nika Muhl. ESPN ranked the class No. 2 in the country behind Oregon.
Here’s a closer look at the fiveplayer class:
PAIGE BUECKERS
Hometown: Eden Prairie, Minn.
Position: Guard
Height: 511
National rank (ESPN): No. 1
Commitment announcement date: April 1, 2019 Quotable: “The thing that is impressive to me about Paige is how unselfish she is and her ability to get everyone involved in the game and her knack of getting to the basket. She’s going to add, to us, a bigger guard that can impact the game, whether she’s shooting it or passing it. It’s important for us to get kids that are talented and unselfish and can score, and Paige has been able to do all those things.” — UConn coach Geno Au
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AALIYAH EDWARDS
Hometown: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Position: Guard
Height: 62
National rank: No. 26 Commitment announcement date: Oct. 24, 2019
Quotable: “Playing for the Canadian National Team has given Aaliyah a tremendous amount of confidence and a lot of exposure to really good basketball at a really high level. She’s tough, she’s aggressive, she goes all out all the time. She can become an amazing defender for us, she can become a scorer that scores from a lot of different places. I think we’re getting a really mature, experience player that can play a lot of different positions for us.” — Auriemma
PIATH GABRIEL
Hometown: Manchester, N.H. Position: Forward
Height: 65
National rank: NR
Commitment announcement date: Sept. 19, 2019
Quotable: “The first time I saw Piath play, I was impressed by how hard she works. How hard she runs the floor. How willing she is to mix it up in the lane. There’s some things offensively that she needs to work on that I think we can help her with. Of all the big kids that I saw this season, she really impressed me with her work ethic. I think Piath is probably going to be the biggest surprise of all the kids coming into college next year.” — Auriemma
MIR MCLEAN
Hometown: Owings Mills, Md. Position: Guard
Height: 511
National rank: No. 21 Commitment announcement date: June 30, 2019
Quotable: “Mir is just a different kind of athlete. She’s a little bit like Aubrey (Griffin) in that she can get to places on the floor that most players can’t. She can get the balls off the rim that most players can’t. She competes as hard, if not harder, that anybody that I’ve seen. We needed to get a lot quicker and a lot more athletic, and having Mir, we’ve done that.” — Auriemma
NIKA MUHL
Hometown: Zagreb, Croatia Position: Guard
Height: 510
National rank: NR
Commitment announcement date: April 8, 2019
Quotable: “What I like about Nika is she just has this incredible passion for the game. She has a certain toughness about her that comes from playing in a really competitive environment over in Croatia. Along with Paige, she’s another player that I think gets a lot of satisfaction out of getting someone else the ball and not necessarily focusing on scoring.” — Auriemma