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Paige Bueckers’ role in women’s basketball is often compared to that of Caitlin Clark.
It felt like the UConn star came first, but the vacuum set up by her injury allowed Clark to steal the show for a couple seasons.
Now it’s Bueckers’ time again with the national championship game on Sunday set to be her final collegiate game.
The opposing coach, Dawn Staley, sees a lot of similarities in the way Clark (who South Carolina beat last year) and Bueckers are focused on.
“Here’s the thing, sometimes we create these narratives about great players — Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now — and we tend to forget the narrative about what our kids have been able to do and going for their third in four years,” Staley said in reference to her own team flying under the radar, via NCAA transcripts from Saturday’s press conferences.
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The legendary coach explained further.
“I just want to put it out there,” Staley said. “I can’t not address it because it’s happening. It happened to us last year. Everything was about Caitlin Clark and her legacy and her ability to win a national championship. Yet we were coming into this thing undefeated, doing something that’s unprecedented at the time, because it’s hard. It’s hard. We find ourselves back here in a similar situation.
“I want the sentiments to be about our players and what our players have been able to do — equally, because there’s room to do both. We can raise Paige up because she deserves that and raise our players up because they deserve that. And that’s not talked about enough. There’s room for it in our game.”
Staley has a fair point.
South Carolina doesn’t have one major superstar this season, but it’s still a strong possibility to win its third national title in four years.
Bueckers may remind many of Clark, too, which is also fair.
The great part about the growth of women’s basketball is that there really is room for all of these great storylines, if we allow them.
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