Bueckers can't do it all as UConn comes up short for title

Updated Apr. 3, 2022 10:41 p.m. ET

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — At the tail end of the third quarter, Paige Bueckers picked up her first personal foul and plopped down on Connecticut's bench for her only break of the night — a whole 53 seconds of game time.

The Huskies had to lean on their sophomore star as hard as they could against superior South Carolina on Sunday, and against any other team in the country she might have been enough.

But despite another all-out effort by Bueckers, UConn still came up well short — the first loss in program history in the title game — and fell 64-49 to the Gamecocks for the national championship.

Bueckers, playing just 10 miles from where she honed her game as a sharp-shooting, slick-passing and ace-ballhandling guard at Hopkins High School, finished with a team-leading 14 points on 6-for-13 shooting with six rebounds, two assists, one block and one steal.

After grinding through an unwelcomed midseason rehab after the left knee injury that cost her 19 games and hitting her stride in the NCAA Tournament, the 2021 AP National Player of the Year had 14 points and five assists in UConn's comfortable semifinal victory over Louisville.

The Target Center lobby was packed two hours before tipoff, several rows deep on both sides of the red carpet rolled out for the players to stroll down upon their entry into the arena. Judging by the handheld signs from the adoring kids and teens Bueckers was by far the VIP of the entourage, even with a head coach in Geno Auriemma who has 11 national championships.

The Gamecocks have one of the fiercest defenses in the game, and they promised to send multiple defenders at Bueckers to keep her from getting comfortable. She never struggled, really, but she couldn't find any kind of a rhythm, either because of all the rebounds that were gobbled up by the Gamecocks and all the turnovers and misses by her teammates. The rest of the Huskies were 16 for 41 from the floor and totaled 14 turnovers.

After South Carolina sprinted to a 13-2 lead, Bueckers didn't get a shot off until a jumper that bounced off the back rim with 3:21 left in the first quarter — her only attempt of the opening period.

Brea Beal and Destanni Henderson spent most of the night guarding Bueckers, as she tried to scrape off screens for catch-and-shoot opportunities or find space for her favored pull-up jumpers, but there wasn't much room in the half court for the Huskies to maneuver. All six of her makes were jump shots. She made one of three tries from 3-point range.

With the imposing Aliyah Boston, who succeeded Bueckers as the Player of the Year award winner, and her friends patrolling the paint, getting to the basket was tough for the Huskies — unless they found a backdoor pass from Bueckers to a cutting teammate.

As if that wasn't enough, Bueckers also spent much of her night chasing around Henderson on the other end, as the Gamecocks senior went out on quite the high note with a career-high 26 points.

The Huskies lost to Arizona in the Final Four last year. Bueckers was denied the chance to play for a championship in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic that halted the Minnesota state high school tournament before Hopkins made it to the title game. Bueckers led the Royals to the 2019 title during her junior season.

___

More AP coverage of March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25