Buckers still led UConn in points per game (14.6) and second in minutes (29.2) while playing in 17 of the team’s 36 total games, putting the Huskies on their way to another Final Four -appearance gave a spark.
But the guard struggled through a physically demanding stretch as she returned from a tibial plateau fracture and a torn meniscus. As the focal point of UConn, she drew a lot of attention from opponents – often by pushing and thrusting.
Against this background, coach Geno Auriemma wants Bückers to focus on himself this summer. While other players are likely to return home in July and August, he asked his star student to stay back and work on building her strength to withstand the physical challenges of a long season.
“Different players have different goals this summer, and their goal is to get a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger,” he said Thursday during the team’s first media availability since April. “Paige has a busy summer ahead of her. Plus all the other stuff, you know. I said, ‘Paige, you do a lot for a lot of people. Think it’s time to do a lot of things for yourself. ”
Auriemma compared Buckers to UConn greats Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart. Due to their dominance on the ground, they are often the target of increased physicality from opponents. Two of the sport’s best players, Moore and Stewart have learned to deal with the physical demands of being the focus of the team — at both UConn and the WNBA.
Buckers faces the same problem in college.
“If you watch us play, no one gets fouled more than them (Bückers),” he said. “No one gets knocked off their cuts, no one gets hit anymore. And like every other good player we’ve had or probably have, most officials say, ‘Well, she can handle it.’
“So they don’t want to call anything because they don’t want to be like, ‘Oh, that’s special. This is preferential treatment for Paige.”
“No, it’s protecting the guy with the ball and protecting your guy who’s trying to open on the wing or whatever the case might be. So it has to be strong enough to withstand it all.”
The Hall of Fame coach wants Buckers to spend the next few months of the offseason building muscle to withstand the increased attention she’ll receive not only from her future collegiate opponents but also in her future WNBA career. Buckers has a passion for coaching and playing 40-minute games, so Auriemma needs to be conditioned to once again handle the demands of an entire season.
“She’s a bit different in the sense that she loves to train,” Auriemma said. “She loves to play more than anything. In practice, she wants to be in the practice for two hours. In the game she wants to play 40 minutes. And when she’s playing, she’s not the type to just run back and stand in defense. She is involved. …. She is active on both offense and defense. But her body is not built for it.
“So, this whole off-season, I told her, I said, ‘Listen, Paige, I know normally you’d go home, but in July, August, after you’ve done your thing, you’re not going anywhere. You have to prepare your body to withstand the way you want to play.’”
Both Moore and Stewart grew to their strengths over the course of their four years at Storrs. Both have had dominant pro careers due to their commitment to getting their bodies optimally prepared for what they experience on the sport’s biggest stage.
“(Bueckers is) will never look like Maya Moore,” Auriemma said. “Probably she’ll look more like Stewie for the rest of her life. But Stewie got a lot stronger over time to be able to withstand what came their way because they treated her pretty much the same way.”
maggie.vanoni@hearstmediat.com