MINNEAPOLIS — Brian Cosgriff first saw Paige Bueckers play when she was in second grade, during a scrimmage at the University of Minnesota.
She was playing against fourth graders “and dominating.”
“Paige was a peanut, she was a tiny little thing,” said Cosgriff, Bueckers’s former head basketball coach at Hopkins High School. “As a seventh grader she was still a peanut, only this time, she was dominating the junior varsity team.”
This has been a common refrain for Bueckers, all the way to the Final Four in Minneapolis this weekend. Bueckers is a field general, even by the demanding standards of point guards, constantly moving and directing to all corners of the court as she fills in gaps where she’s needed most.