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Paige Bueckers wins first NCAA championship: UConn star's career revisited
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- Paige Bueckers wins first NCAA championship: UConn star's career revisited
( This story has been updated with additional information ).
Paige Bueckers is going to go down as an all-time great for UConn and women's college basketball .
However, there was one thing missing from her impressive collegiate resume heading into Sunday's national title game: a national championship.
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The redshirt senior rectified that with a win over No. 1 seed South Carolina in the 2025 women's NCAA Tournament championship game, held at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
Despite having one more year of eligibility due to COVID-19, Sunday's national championship was Bueckers' final collegiate game. She is heading to the WNBA and is widely projected as the No. 1 overall pick.
Here's everything you need to know about if Bueckers has ever won a national championship:
OPINION: Bueckers goes out a champion because of team she helped build
Has Paige Bueckers won an NCAA national championship?
The Huskies win on Sunday was Bueckers' first, and the program's first since 2016. Bueckers arrived in 2020 with the hopes of ending that drought. UConn had its opportunities to claim that elusive national title, making the Final Four in four of five seasons with Bueckers.
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That doesn't include a Sweet 16 exit in the 2023 women's NCAA Tournament (when Bueckers missed her entire junior year with a torn ACL). She also appeared in just 17 games in her sophomore season due to injuries .
Bueckers and UConn lost to Dawn Staley and South Carolina 64-49 in the 2022 national championship game, which marked Auriemma's first-ever loss in the title game after he started with a perfect 11-0 record. The championship game Sunday was Bueckers' second of her career.
"I think everything in life has kind of taught me not to take things for granted," Bueckers said Saturday. "Being in the national championship game, it's extremely hard to get to and extremely rewarding to be a part of."
BUECKERS' POINTS: UConn star's stats in women's NCAA championship game
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Does Paige Bueckers need a national championship for legacy?
Bueckers is a three-time All-American and the 2021 national player of the year. She is the fastest player in program history to 2,000 career points (102 games) and scored her 1,000th career point in her 55th career game, tying Maya Moore as the fastest Huskies to reach the milestone.
With 2,422 career points entering Sunday's game, she sits third behind Moore (3,036) and Breanna Stewart (2,676) on UConn's career scoring list. It's safe to say she has accomplished a lot, despite not winning the elusive national championship.
"Paige doesn't need anything to change her life to make her life better," Auriemma said. "She's got a life that most people would dream about. But for someone who's invested so much into the University of Connecticut, the community, the team, her teammates, and loves the game so much, she deserves to go out as a national champion."
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When it comes to legacy, when talking to the media on Saturday, Bueckers said she'll leave that to everyone else to decide.
"I'm not worried about that at all," Bueckers said. "The thing I take great joy and great pride in is the relationships, the experiences, the journeys we've gone on throughout the team. Just the bonds I've been able to create with my teammates, the memories, the close-knit stuff that you can't really experience without sports. How it's brought us all together and how much we've grown as individuals, grown as a team. All the stuff we've been through and how much it's made us stronger.
"Really, the journey is the reward for me. Talk of legacy and whatever, that's not up to me. All I can worry about and control is who I am every single day and who we are as a team."
Paige Bueckers stats
Here are Bueckers' season-by-season per-game averages at UConn:
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2020-21: 20.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 2.3 steals per game on 52.4% shooting
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2021-22 (17 games): 14.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.5 steals per game on 54.4% shooting
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2023-24: 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.2 steals per game on 53% shooting
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2024-25: 20.0 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 2.2 steals per game on 53.9% shooting
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Paige Bueckers wins NCAA championship: UConn star's career revisited
