UConn's Paige Bueckers Expected to Be Ready for Start of 2023-24 Season After Injury

UConn women's basketball star Paige Bueckers is 90 percent recovered from the torn ACL that sidelined her for the entire 2022-23 campaign and is expected to be ready for the start of the 2023-24 season, head coach Geno Auriemma told reporters Tuesday.

"If she's not ready to go [by then], then I'm not ready to go," Auriemma said Tuesday. "Let's put it that way."

Auriemma added that he has been impressed with the work Bueckers has put into her recovery:

"This is the best she's ever been, the strongest she's ever been, the fittest she's ever been. This is the most time she has spent working on her body, her mind, [and] just taking care of herself... [The injury layoff] showed her, if you want a long career, this is how you're gonna have to go about it from here on in injuries, no injuries, it doesn't matter. This is what you're gonna have to do. And she's embraced it."

"I've never seen her better either at playing one-on-one, 2-on-2 or 3-on-3, what she's doing in the weight room. Just her whole walk, the way she walks around, the way everybody looks up to her and the way everybody hangs on every word she says, there's just a maturity about her."

Bueckers told reporters last week that she's "feeling really good" and is "starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the finishing mark" in her rehab.

"But there's a long way to go," she said. "ACL recoveries take a long time."

Bueckers tore the ACL in her left knee while playing in a pick-up basketball game in August 2022. It was the second major knee injury of her college career after she suffered a lateral meniscus tear and tibial plateau fracture in her left knee in 2021-22.

With Bueckers sidelined in 2022-23, the Huskies finished the season with a 31-6 record but suffered a disappointing loss in the NCAA tournament to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Sweet Sixteen.

Bueckers has been an impact player for UConn since her freshman season in 2020-21 when she averaged 20.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 2.3 steals while shooting 52.4 percent from the floor and 46.4 percent from deep.

In addition to being named the 2020-21 Big East Player of the Year, the 21-year-old was also named the winner of the Naismith Award, presented annually to the most outstanding player in college basketball.

Bueckers was expected to put together a big 2021-22 campaign after winning the Naismith Award, but she suffered a knee injury and appeared in just 17 games, averaging 14.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.5 steals.

Despite the dip in her numbers, Bueckers helped guide UConn to the 2022 national title game, where the Huskies fell to Aliyah Boston and the South Carolina Gamecocks.

With Bueckers healthy in 2023-24, the Huskies could very well make another run to the national title game with Azzi Fudd and Aaliyah Edwards also still on the roster.