UConn Huskies girls’s basketball star Paige Bueckers has carried out at a excessive degree in the course of the NCAA Event and most not too long ago scored 40 factors in a Candy 16 sport in opposition to Oklahoma.
Anybody who had been following Bueckers for the reason that starting of her collegiate profession is aware of that video games just like the one in opposition to the Sooners had been par for the course. She dropped 34 factors in opposition to South Dakota State within the second spherical as nicely.
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UConn guards Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers on the bench in opposition to Arkansas State within the first spherical of the NCAA match, Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Storrs, Connecticut (AP Photograph/Jessica Hil;)
However her recognition has but to skyrocket like Caitlin Clark’s when the sharpshooter was profitable video games at Iowa and setting NCAA data in scoring. Former NBA heart Etan Thomas instructed in a column for The Guardian final week there have been a number of causes for that.
Thomas wrote that Bueckers’ associations with Black individuals and the dearth of a so-called “Black villain” to deal with within the NCAA Event affected how White individuals noticed the Huskies guard. He pointed to Bueckers’ choice to shoutout Black girls throughout her ESPYs speech in 2021 as the beginning of it.
“Meanwhile, there has been no Black villain for Bueckers to compete against,” Thomas wrote, alluding to Clark’s on-court rivalry with LSU standout Angel Reese. “The fact that that has meant she has gained less attention and adoration from middle America says a lot about the state of the country.”
UConn guard Paige Bueckers runs by the scholar part at Gampel Pavilion after a sport in opposition to South Dakota State within the second spherical of the NCAA match, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Storrs. (AP Photograph/Jessica Hill)
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Thomas claimed individuals who didn’t have an curiosity in girls’s basketball rapidly grew to become followers for all of the “worst reasons,” including that “they were there to cheer Clark’s Whiteness, and attack Reese’s Blackness, not their talent.”
He then wrote that Bueckers’ choice to prepare dinner for her Muslim teammates throughout Ramadan, sing gospel songs and has a Black stepmother and stepsiblings supposedly “simply doesn’t sit well with ‘that certain demographic,’ who embraced Clark and championed her for the “unsuitable causes.”
Bueckers is averaging 19.8 points, 4.7 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game. She’s a part of a sorority of legendary Huskies players who have come before her, though she’s missing the one thing great alumni like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart have – a national title.
UConn guard Paige Bueckers passes the ball during the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament against Oklahoma, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Spokane, Washington. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
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It’s likely that Bueckers will be the No. 1 pick of the WNBA Draft and it will be fun to watch her go up against Clark, Reese, Cameron Brink, Arike Ogunbowale, Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and others when she takes the court in the pros.
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