Women's college basketball's best performance of 2022: Paige Bueckers' amazing Elite Eight (2024)

In some ways, UConn has played a lot of games similar to the one on March 28, 2022, when the Huskies battled NC State in the Elite Eight of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. There were players suiting up for UConn that day who had already won multiple Elite Eight contests, not to mention a coach on the sideline who had guided the Huskies to 13 straight Final Fours and 21 overall appearances. The setting itself was familiar territory.

But a traumatic injury, 13 lead changes, nine ties and two overtimes later, it was clear that none of them had played in a game quite like this one. After 50 minutes of game action, UConn’s 91-87 victory over the Wolfpack that sent the Huskies to their 14th consecutive Final Four was a night unlike any that they had ever experienced, and it’s a memory they cherish even after losing in the national title game to South Carolina.

A game that hung in the balance for the majority of its run time, that delivered drama and spectacle and an individual masterpiece by Paige Bueckers, is the obvious choice for The Athletic’s women’s college basketball performance of the year.

This is the story of the game of the year, as remembered by three people who played in it (Bueckers, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, and Evina Westbrook) and a UConn alum on the broadcast call that evening, Rebecca Lobo.

(Quotes have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)

UConn entered the game as the No. 2 seed against No. 1 NC State but was still a four-point favorite. Part of the rationale was the contest being a de facto home game for the Huskies, as it was taking place in Bridgeport, Conn. Part of the thinking was that UConn simply didn’t miss the Final Four, no matter the circ*mstances. The program had made the national semifinals for 13 years running, and the magnitude of that streak was on the minds of every Huskies player who took the court.

Olivia Nelson-Ododa (a senior forward/center in 2021-22): I think if you talk to any UConn player either on that team at the time or just in previous teams, there’s always that pressure in the back of your head. You have to keep the streak alive, you have to keep it going. … That’s also part of what makes it exciting and fun, too, just having that pressure on yourselves but also just playing through that.

Evina Westbrook (a redshirt senior guard/forward in 2021-22): We’re supposed to be there and yeah, if you don’t get there, you’re gonna be part of that team who broke the streak. But at the same time, we’re not in the locker room thinking, “Hey, you can’t break the streak.” It’s more like we need to get back to where our standard is supposed to be, which is the Final Four every year.

Paige Bueckers (a sophom*ore guard in 2021-22): As a player, you don’t wanna be on the team that ruins the streak. But when you’re playing, like, that never crosses my mind. You think about it after, like, “Dang, we’re really glad we kept the streak going,” but that’s never the intent. At UConn, it’s really a national championship or nothing.

The Huskies hadn’t exhibited their usual dominance during a five-loss regular season that was littered with injuries. UConn was without Bueckers for nearly three months because of a knee injury, and they missed freshman Azzi Fudd (the No. 1 recruit in the country) for another two months, not to mention junior Aubrey Griffin’s absence the full season. One player who had been a steadying force throughout the year was senior Christyn Williams, the only player to top the 1,000-minute threshold last year. Against the Wolfpack, Williams put the team on her back early and scored nine of UConn’s first 15 points. She had 11 in the first half to help the Huskies build a 10-point second-quarter lead.

Westbrook: I think her coming out the gate and being aggressive and hitting the shots and taking the shots and being comfortable enough and confident enough to take the shots that she was taking and making. … I mean we were just super proud of her and she set the tone for the seniors that whole game.

Bueckers: Playing with Christyn for two years, when she comes out aggressive and when she has that look, she’s gonna have a great game. So she came out with that look, and she definitely set the tone first in that game.

UConn was up by seven, comfortably controlling the game when disaster struck with 6:19 left in the first half. Dorka Juhász, the third big in the team’s frontcourt rotation, fell to the floor while attempting to complete an offensive rebound putback, fracturing and dislocating her left wrist. It was traumatic to witness for the players on the court, and another blow to the Huskies’ depth.

Westbrook:Dorka had gone down, put her wrist down on the ground. So we go down there to help her up, and I’m standing right in front of her, she’s grabbing her wrist, she’s like, “Ow, ow.” And she looks at her wrist and I look at her wrist, and instantly, like, the bone of her wrist is on the other side. And it’s just me and her down there, so I automatically grab her face, I’m saying, “Just look at me, just look at me.” She’s crying, I’m like, “No, just look at me, just look at me.” I’m looking at the bench because you know they’re waiting for her to get up. I’m like, no she’s not getting up, but in my mind, I see what it looks like, so as soon as she gets up, they get her up off the floor. I go back to the bench, and I had to put a towel over my head because I’m literally in tears. I already know that she’s done. She’s out for the season, and then everything starts going through my mind, like she’s a senior. This is it, she could have gone to the draft this year. That’s my teammate. … I was in shock.

Nelson-Ododa:I just remember that season at one point playing with six, seven people total, two subs on the bench. So at that point, at the Elite Eight, where you can go home at any time, I mean, I feel like as a collective team, we’re just like, “Not again.” This is just one on top of the other. This is really our luck, this whole season.

Bueckers:We were devastated, just cause of what we had been through the entire year. I think that was probably the most healthy we had been all season, and we’re playing our best basketball and everybody was starting to find their roles and everybody was just starting to click and our team chemistry and our camaraderie was getting going. … But then I think the switch flipped to where we started to play more motivated to win for her and to keep going for her. All that we have been through that whole year made us really close and really strong.

Even if UConn wanted to win for Juhász, NC State wasn’t about to go down without a fight. The Wolfpack began the second half with five quick points to pull within one, and the two teams essentially traded baskets for the rest of the quarter, though the Huskies were able to maintain a slim lead throughout. Of the 10 Huskies points during the third, four came on fast-break layups. The rest came courtesy of Bueckers jumpers, as she began to take control of the game after four first-half points on 2-of-7 shooting.

Rebecca Lobo (ESPN analyst): That’s who (Paige) is, like, all right, I’m gonna let everybody else do their thing, I’m gonna be the floor general. And she kind of had taken on that role coming back from injury. She was not looking for her offense as much as they wanted her to because they’d been having success and she was trying to figure out her way with the team. So I believe once she came back from the injury, that was the first time where they needed her to assert herself in that way. And she did.

Bueckers:There was a rhythm that they built without me. And so coming back into the lineup, there was a UConn team without Paige and a UConn team with Paige. So I was just trying to find the perfect spot where I wasn’t disrupting anything and doing too much or I’m doing too little and not contributing and helping my team as much as I should. So there’s always that balance of trying to just find the best spot, the best places, and the best contributions I could to help the team. At first, I thought everybody had their certain amount of shots that they wanted, I’m not gonna come and take anybody else’s shots. But I think when games start to get to that point where somebody needs to take over and no more funny silly games can happen, I think that’s when I sort of took over at the end.

What had been a well-played game through three quarters now began to approach instant classic territory. NC State took its first lead since the opening quarter with a layup from Jada Boyd to start the fourth. That was the first of 11 lead changes and eight ties during the fourth quarter and the first overtime. The game was up in the air for seemingly every possession.

Lobo: The back and forth of it, the huge performances. In a great game. Of course, you can get a game-winning shot and you have big performances and it’s close, and in this case overtime, but it was really incredibly high-level basketball. It’s exactly what you want when there’s a lot of eyeballs on the sport.

Bueckers: Everybody was making plays on both sides, and it was just a crazy game to be a part of, and you felt the pressure. But at that time, you’re just trying to win so you weren’t even thinking about it. … It’s only fun at the end when you know you won. As a competitor, it’s fun going back and forth, but nobody wins going back and forth. Somebody’s gotta stop.

UConn had a chance to take the lead with 28 seconds left in regulation, but Nelson-Ododa missed both free throws and was fortunate that NC State didn’t make much of an effort to score on the final possession, instead set on making sure the clock ran out. The Huskies went 1 of 9 from the foul line through regulation, and when the senior looked over at coach Geno Auriemma after her miss, there was only one way to describe his emotional state.

Nelson-Ododa: I looked at him, he was pissed off. Absolutely. But I mean, at that moment it’s either, stay in that or you just move on. But yeah, he was definitely mad. Definitely pissed off. I mean, what coach wouldn’t be? When you have a chance to get a lead.

The free throws started to go in for UConn during the first overtime — Bueckers and Fudd combined to make all eight of their attempts — and the Huskies held a three-point lead with 6.2 seconds to play. Suddenly, the instant classic turned into one of the greatest games in NCAA Tournament history. The Wolfpack inbounded the ball to Perez, Cunane set a flare screen on Bueckers for Jakia Brown-Turner on the right wing, and Perez found her shooter in the corner for the game-tying 3 as time nearly expired. The teams headed to double overtime, the first time in tournament history that a game in the Elite Eight or later had two extra sessions.

JAKIA BROWN-TURNER AT THE BUZZER!

Turner hits the game-tying three over Paige Bueckers to send NC State to double overtime against UConn 🤯

🎥 @MarchMadnessWBBpic.twitter.com/qPGt4G5cxm

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 29, 2022

Nelson-Ododa: My internal reaction was just so deflated, like, “Oh my god, no, not again, come on.” Out of all the shots, all the time, she makes that one. … You can’t dwell on that too long. It’s all right, it happened, now what’s next? Prepare for another overtime.

Lobo: For us in TV, it’s exhilarating ’cause this is selfishly what every broadcaster wants. We’ve had this incredibly high-level game. And now we have this huge moment that gives us five more minutes — yay us! But yeah, it felt a little bit like a dagger in the moment, a little bit deflating.

Bueckers: I think the moment I felt the most pressure was when I went under on the Jakia screen in the corner. At that point — it’s easy for me to say now because I know we won — but at that point, I knew we were not gonna lose ’cause there’s no way I could sit all summer and just sulk on that mistake and know that that’s the reason the game went into double overtime.

Bueckers began the second overtime making good on her error. She hit a 3-pointer on UConn’s first possession of the period, sprung free by a screen from Aaliyah Edwards. The Huskies would not relinquish the lead again. Bueckers finished with 15 points in the extra sessions (27 total on 10-of-15 shooting) and had a streak of nine consecutive made jumpers, interspersed with six straight made free throws. Seven of her buckets, and all of her free throws, came when the score was a one-point difference. It was a myth-making performance whose volume and efficiency put her in the company of other UConn greats like Breanna Stewart, Maya Moore and Napheesa Collier.

Bueckers:It feels like the basket is huge, and already I have a confidence in which I believe in myself so much that if I get any shot up, I think it’s gonna go in. Every time I miss, I think it’s a fluke. So just having that mentality. I didn’t have that as much when I was coming back. I was just trying to, I don’t know, play in a way where I wanted to just trust my knee again. I wasn’t even focused on scoring and doing all these things on the court. I was just trying to trust myself to play and do the same things I did pre-injury, but when you get in a mode like that, you feel like you can’t really miss and you’re just trying to do anything you can to get open and get another opportunity to shoot it.

UCONN WINS A THRILLER ‼️

The No. 2 Huskies beat No. 1 NC State in 2OT and have advanced to the Final Four for the 14th straight time 🤯

(via @MarchMadnessWBB)pic.twitter.com/AHae7gKELo

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 29, 2022

Nelson-Ododa: To put it simply, that’s literally just Paige. And I think it’s important that when a player’s hot like that, you give them the ball. When a player is in their zone — and she was, she was confident in her zone, just bucket after bucket — in a moment like that, my philosophy is you feed the fire, you give the ball to somebody that is just locked in like that.

Westbrook:For her to come back not too many games before, just off the injury, and then when you haven’t played in a while, just to have a game like that? That game when we needed it? We weren’t surprised, no. It was just more like her being her, Paige being Paige.

Lobo:The great ones, they have big performances in the most important moments. And I think that was one of those games where it was, wow, this scrawny sophom*ore has the ability to take over a game, and with all the eyes on her, national TV, sold-out arena. And coaches have talked for years about how the Elite Eight game is the toughest game in terms of the pressure of the moment, and she could not have been any bigger when they needed her most.

After the final buzzer, it was easy to wonder about how the game might have played out on a neutral site. Although the matchup wasn’t in UConn’s actual home arena and was staged about an hour away, it was still way too close for the Wolfpack, who had come in as the higher seed.

Lobo:NC State showed that they were, not that they needed to, but they were a worthy 1-seed. And it was an unfortunate circ*mstance for them of course to have to play UConn in their state. But it was a battle of two heavyweights who certainly deserved to be playing in a regional final. But, I mean, the crowd was certainly, you know, 98 percent rooting for UConn.

Westbrook: I would say 80 percent of the gym was UConn, but the other 20 percent of NC state was loud. I mean, every time they hit a shot, it sounded like the whole arena was for them, too.

Bueckers:I think it’s a great venue, maybe not for us in that situation. I mean, I would call it home-court advantage, but for me, I think I like playing on the road better just to play in front of a hostile environment and sort of hush their crowd and stuff like that. So for me, I don’t really care where we play, but I think it helped greatly. So I’m not complaining.

Even if the tournament run ended in a loss, Bueckers and Co.’s performance lives on in tournament lore.

Lobo: It’s likeMississippi State a few years prior in the (2017) Final Four with the huge upset, Morgan William shot, beating UConn. Does that lose any luster because Mississippi State doesn’t win the national championship? No. More people probably remember Morgan William and that shot than they do even some of the great performances by South Carolina in that championship game. So no, I don’t think in any way it tarnishes the luster of the game itself.

The enormity of the moment immediately sunk in for the Huskies. They had kept the streak alive, advancing to the Final Four in dramatic fashion.

Nelson-Ododa:I think there were tears. That was probably the most hard-fought March Madness game that we had ever been a part of, especially that specific group. … But it’s definitely tears, definitely very emotional. In fact, too, a lot of people really counted us out that season and didn’t think that we could even get that far with all the stuff that happened with our team and the injuries. And so that was just such a surreal moment where once the buzzer went off and it was finally done, all of that had paid off, just the adversity, the struggles, all of it.

Lobo:It was certainly one of the best tournament games I’ve ever called. I know that after that game, I felt like this is the best non-Final Four game I’ve certainly ever called and I think it might be the best tournament game — again, not in the Final Four because those two Arike (Ogunbowale for Notre Dame) games were incredible — that I had ever also seen, not just one that I called, but one of the best that I had ever seen.

Westbrook: (Auriemma) walked in the locker room and was just like, “Damn.” I think that’s all he said, just walking around, and he was like, “Damn. Damn. Damn.” That’s all he kept saying. I mean, it was a crazy game.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: M. Anthony Nesmith / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Khoi Ton / Getty Images)