TAMPA, FLA. -- Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart gathered at the UConn Huskies' team hotel following their alma mater's loss in the 2022 national championship game to South Carolina. The trio of UConn greats wanted to console the Huskies -- and Paige Bueckers.
The defeat was devastating, historic; the first loss in a national title game in program history after 11 previous wins and extending the school's championship drought yet another year. And yet, the alumni wanted to reassure Bueckers, then only a sophomore, that heartbreak like this was all part of the process.