Paige Bueckers injured in Huskies win
How serious of an injury? The team waits anxiously
STORRS — Thousands of fans were already headed for the exits and UConn had all but unofficially finished off Notre Dame Sunday afternoon when Gampel Pavilion fell silent but for the worst murmur in sport.
With the Huskies simply going through the final necessary motions of what became a 73-54 victory, Paige Bueckers dribbled up court, slowly and virtually unbothered, the way any player has countless times.
But her left leg buckled and — all heads now turned her way — Bueckers fell to the court in front of the UConn bench with 38.5 seconds left, remaining there until she was carried to the bench and, moments later, carried through the handshake line and out of sight.
“The doctors did a quick examination and they’re going to wait for the ice to come off and then they’ll know more,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “Then, an MRI. On the replay it looked like it hyperextended. But nothing twisted. … So hopefully we get some good news [Monday].”
Auriemma added, “But the first thing that goes through your mind is the worst thing.”
These scenes are awful. These nocontact injuries are bizarre. The potential for such a scenario, though, lives
and breathes with every season, every game, every quarter, every possession.
And when so many people — 10,000-plus were on hand for Sunday’s sellout — see a player, particularly a player of Bueckers’ caliber, go down and writhe in pain, uncomfortable whispers overlap to create that thematic sound of fear and concern. It’s eerie.
Then again, not all UConn fans saw this happen. Some had probably even reached their car in the South Garage across the street when Bueckers fell. The game, for all intents and purposes, was over. Which begs the question: Why was UConn’s most valuable player even on the court?
“She never comes out,” Auriemma said. “She never wants to come out. She’s a pain in the [butt] to have on the bench because all she does is complain about why she’s not playing. And we’ve made a concerted effort the last three or four games to get her some rest during the game.
“And you’re right, I don’t have an answer for why she was in the game. I mean, that could happen any time. It could happen in practice. It could happen in a game. But, yeah, I don’t like our team without her on the court. I mean, I might have to like it if she misses any time, but I don’t like the way our team looks when she’s not on the floor.”
Bueckers played the entire game to that point, all 39 minutes and 21 seconds, and was headed toward playing all 40 for the first time since the season opener. She finished with 22 points, four rebounds and four assists, once again figuratively carrying her team — until she had to be carried, literally.
Amari DeBerry and Evina Westbrook lifted Bueckers to the bench, where she sat as the game expired. Bueckers
made it through the handshake line with her left arm around draped around trainer Janelle Francisco and her right around teammate Azzi Fudd. The postgame scene was muted.
“We definitely celebrated the win but we were definitely more concerned about Paige and how she was feeling, her status,” said senior forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who had her first doubledouble of the season with 14 points and 13 rebounds. “We’re kind of awaiting that. We’re praying for the best and praying for good news.”
Bueckers was last season’s national player of the year as a freshman. There hasn’t been a more valuable player through six games of 2021-22.
She is averaging 21.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists — and 36.3 minutes. She finished Friday’s victory over Seton Hall with gauze stuffed in a nostril to stop a bloody nose. She has been as tough as she is graceful, absorbing contact, playing aggressive defense to match her offensive flash, taking on a heavy burden for a team that is very much a work in progress.
The Huskies — by their lofty standards, with the way games have played out — have been inconsistent in the improvement they’ve shown in a small window. But there is always Bueckers. Always.
Which means that near silence, that murmur, could signal a significant change in the way a portion of this season plays out.
The Huskies are without their two highest profile players, the first darlings of the name, image and likeness era. Bueckers and Fudd, a freshman who arrived at UConn with equal hype, have recently announced several lucrative sponsorship deals, walking further into the spotlight of celebrity.
Now they’re both out, Fudd for at least a couple weeks, Bueckers for … who knows?
“When you play enough and you coach enough and you’ve seen enough basketball, you’ve pretty much seen it all,” Auriemma said. “We’ve certainly had our share here of unfortunate things happen. And you just kind of shake your head and hope that you didn’t see it, or what you saw wasn’t as bad as you think it might be or as it appeared. But you immediately put yourself in that kid’s shoes. What are they thinking? How are they reeling right now? What’s going through their mind when something like that happens? That’s the part that I think really hits you in the pit of your stomach.”
Numerous knee injuries derailed, and ended early, Shea Ralph’s UConn career.
Svetlana Abrosimova’s senior season was also cut short, due to a torn toe ligament. Nykesha Sales, Caroline Doty, Kalana Greene, Keirsten Walters — and several others — had their UConn careers disrupted by, or ended by, significant knee injuries.
Sue Bird is another. She was on hand Sunday, helping UConn unveil a monument that celebrates Olympians with university ties and taking part in a halftime ceremony. Bird tore an ACL about a month into her freshman season of 1998-99.
“Sometimes you know right away this is really, really, really bad,” Auriemma said. “I’ve seen it. And sometimes you don’t see it coming and it’s nothing. I remember when Sue was playing, she was just dribbling up the floor, stopped at the foul line, went up for a pull-up jumper, the kind she makes 99 out of 100 times, came down and went, ‘That felt funny.’ Well, it should, because it was a torn ACL. Nobody [was] near. Same with Paige.”
When Bueckers took the ball up court to close out Sunday’s game, Notre Dame’s Anaya Peoples briefly approached but was probably 10 feet away when Bueckers jab-stepped. Her left leg did appear to hyperextend. She made it another 50 feet or so before falling in front of UConn teammates and coaches who soon surrounded her, all motion in Gampel coming to a halt, that murmur prevailing.
“I think you get a little shell-shocked, a little fear, whenever you see that happen — whether it’s one of your teammates, whether it’s an opponent,” Auriemma said. “Every time you see that, you just cross your fingers and hope for the best.”