STORRS — The No. 6 UConn women’s basketball team couldn’t have had a more fitting performance for its “Throwback to the Beginning” themed game at Gampel Pavilion than the one it put together against Seton Hall on Sunday.
Sporting the iconic white jerseys the Huskies wore from 1998-2002 in front of a sold-out crowd, Paige Bueckers took down a 15-year-old program record, becoming the fastest player to score 2,000 career points in her 102nd game. The redshirt senior superstar placed herself among an elite tier of UConn legends by surpassing the milestone, joining four-time NCAA champion Breanna Stewart and Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer Maya Moore as the only players to log 2,000 points, 400 rebounds, 400 rebounds and 200 steals in their careers.
But in Sunday’s 96-36 rout of the Pirates, it was the dominance from all three former No. 1 recruits on the roster — Bueckers, redshirt junior Azzi Fudd, and freshman Sarah Strong — that felt most reminiscent of UConn dynasties past. Bueckers and Fudd scored 18 points apiece each hitting four 3-pointers, and Bueckers added a team-high seven assists. Strong put up the fourth double-double and seventh 20-point game of her young career with 23 points and 11 rebounds plus two assists and two steals. The entire trio shot 60% or better from the field, and they accounted for 59 of UConn’s 84 points over the first three quarters before resting the entire fourth.
“We’re on our own court, in our crowd and we’re flying up the floor, and that’s giving Paige a lot of targets. It’s like a quarterback back there trying to find everybody,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “When we have that, then she’s really, really dangerous with the ball. Then having Azzi over here, Sarah over there … it’s a lot going on for the other team to have to guard, and play like that has to be the goal. The standard has to be at that pace. It’s something to build on, and it’s great for them to see that.”
It was Auriemma who pointed out that part of the reason Bueckers hit 2,000 points in record pace was her underwhelming supporting cast — by UConn standards, at least. Stewart, the most decorated player in program history, played alongside eight other AP All-Americans and took 117 games to reach 2,000 points from 2012-16. Moore, the fastest to the milestone before Bueckers in 108 games, shared a roster with Naismith Player of the Year Tina Charles and two-time All-American Renee Montgomery from 2007-10.
Bueckers has played with just one other All-American, 2024 graduate Aaliyah Edwards, who earned third-team honors in 2023. Being UConn’s best option any time she’s on the floor has been a double-edged sword for Bueckers, Auriemma said: A boon for her production, but arguably the biggest obstacle to her ultimate goal of winning the program its long-awaited 12th national championship.
“Life doesn’t always put you in position you want to be in, and you’ve got to function in the time that you’re in, but I would think that the better the starting five is … that you put her in the middle of, the even better she’s going to be,” Auriemma said. “When you look at those banners on the wall of the best players ever to play here and you look at the years, you start going wait a minute, (those five) were all on the same team. How’d they do that year? Oh, they won two national championships … Those two things are so connected.”
The 2024-25 season began with Bueckers once again bearing a heavy load for the Huskies. She was the only player in the starting lineup with more than a year of college basketball experience, and the team played its first three games with 10 available players while Fudd and sixth-year forward Aubrey Griffin recovered from ACL tears suffered last season. Fudd was briefly sidelined for three more games by a knee sprain in December, and Bueckers herself missed two with a knee sprain in January before returning Wednesday with 12 points against St. John’s.
Though they currently have just one ranked win on the season over No. 13 North Carolina, the preseason No. 2 Huskies have always known how high their ceiling could be with a fully healthy roster. Strong was a revelation for UConn as soon as she arrived on campus, leading in the team with 7.9 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game on top of her 16.9 points and 3.6 assists. Fudd is quickly unlocking the best version of herself since returning from the sprain averaging 18.8 points on 61.2% shooting from the field and 56.5% beyond the arc over UConn’s last four games.
Sunday’s 60-point victory showed all the pieces finally coming together the way Auriemma imagined it could at the start of the season. There are still major tests left on UConn’s schedule in No. 17 Tennessee and No. 2 South Carolina, but the longtime Huskies coach saw shades of title teams past from his squad that he hopes will continue to build momentum down the stretch.
“I do think that if the three of them are playing at a real high level and executing their stuff the way they did today, we have an opportunity. We have a chance,” Auriemma said. “We put ourselves in the chance to win most of the games that we’re going to play the rest of the season. What that leads to I don’t know, but I think the confidence those three have in themselves and in each other is a huge factor. … When it’s clicking like that, it’s really fun to watch.”
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