In UConn women’s basketball’s first six games of the season, two things were clear: Paige Bueckers was well on her way to repeating as national player of the year and the Huskies had taken a big step backward despite adding talent to a team that went to the Final Four the year before.
Bueckers had to put UConn on her back each time out because that’s precisely what her teammates expected her to do. She dropped a career-high 34 points in the opener against Arkansas and after an eight-point, eight-assist performance in a beatdown of Minnesota, she averaged 21.