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There’s a lot of respect between Dallas Wings star Paige Bueckers and her former college coach, Geno Auriemma. Bueckers is one of the best players to ever come through UConn, and that’s saying a lot for a program that has had Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, and plenty of other basketball legends.
But we’ve never seen Auriemma be as laid back as he is with Bueckers. The WNBA’s most recent Rookie of the Year was back in Storrs, Connecticut, for the ring ceremony for winning the national championship last year, a ring she helped design, but she also got to be on the other side of a UConn practice as a practice player. She seemed to enjoy that experience a lot more.
“He’s a lot nicer to me now that I’m not a player there. We picked up right where we left off for sure,” she said of going back and seeing Auriemma again.
“I was a practice player,” Bueckers said to USA Today, “so it was fun to kind of beat up on [Auriemma] and the team on the other side of things and not have to worry about him yelling at me. Just to be on the other side … you really feel no pressure. You’re out there just hooping having fun, and the other team is getting yelled at, so you’re not really worried about anything. You can just go be free. I even had to yell at my practice squad teammates, because they were not locked in. So everybody can get it. Nobody’s safe.”
Bueckers had a sensational rookie season with the Dallas Wings, being a starter in the All-Star Game and making the All-WNBA Second Team. She has MVP potential, but the team is going to need to be built up around her better.
READ MORE: Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers wants to run her own race
Before the Wings hired Jose Fernandez to be the next head coach of the franchise, Auriemma mentioned to the media how Paige Bueckers could play for any coach, but it’s going to come down to the roster around her more than anything.
“At the end of the day, whoever the coach is, you can make it work for them, or you can make it not work for them, provided there’s a good roster around you,” Auriemma said he told Bueckers. “So. I think the roster is gonna be more important than the coach, even though a coach is crucial.”
READ MORE: Paige Bueckers reveals she was once mistaken for Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham
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