This Girl Is The Next Big Thing In Basketball
Paige Bueckers is a teenage sensation and the next big superstar in women’s college basketball. Bueckers, 5-foot-11, plays for Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minnesota. She’s the top-ranked basketball player in the 2020 class and already has a phenomenal resume for a girl of just 18.
Bueckers played varsity basketball in the eighth grade and led her high school team to win the state championship in her junior year, averaging 24 points per game with five assists, five rebounds, five steals and nearly a block per game. She has won four gold medals with USA Basketball and was one of the youngest players on the American roster that won the gold medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand. Bueckers averaged 11.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.4 assists, which helped her earn USA Basketball’s 2019 Female Athlete of the Year award.
Bueckers is a consensus 5-star recruit and just became the 11th No.1 recruit to sign with the University of Connecticut since 1998. UConn is a basketball powerhouse for women with 11 Championships under coach Geno Auriemma. Many people are saying Bueckers can resurrect UConn, which has been atypically vulnerable in the last few years. Auriemma, who has been the head coach for 35 seasons, went on about Buecker’s abilities, saying he will be telling the world “You know what? We wouldn’t have won the national championship without her.”
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Scroll through your Instagram feed and you will see highlights of Bueckers’ moves almost weekly. In an interview with SLAM, Bueckers talked about how many are comparing her game to Diana Taurasi, a legend at UCONN, but she says “just being able to be the first Paige Bueckers, that’s what I want.”
We are the fortunate ones – watching her bright future unfold in front of us. She was “born to be a basketball player,” according to Auriemma, who has stated, “the court is her personal playground,” and that it is. Bueckers is a gym rat, known to spend hours at the gym just shooting. Her coach at Hopkins High School, Brian Cosgriff says, “Paige is extremely gifted. She sees the floor, she makes everyone around her better, and she’s just fun to be around on a daily basis.” Bueckers has stated that her dream was to play at UConn, and the gym in Storrs, CT is waiting for her.
Photo Credits: Pexels, Instagram, Twitter
