STORRS, Conn. (AP) Paige Bueckers is trying to get the fear out of her mind.
But it’s there when the 2021 Nationals’ Player of the Year cuts or cracks her surgically repaired left leg.
Beckers is back on the court with her teammates – despite not having fully participated in practice games yet – 10 months after suffering the second knee injury of her college career.
And you occasionally wonder, could that happen again?
“I think everything happens for a reason,” Beckers said Wednesday after a team workout. Everyone can be afraid of getting injured. You don’t have to have a previous injury to do this. I think fear is always there, but I try not to let it consume me and just go out there and have fun.”
Well, have fun and get ready to lead UConn in a race to its 12th national title and first since 2016, she said.
Beckers was everything as a freshman, averaging 20 points, 5.8 assists, and 4.9 rebounds a game.
But in December of her sophomore season, during the dying seconds of a win over Notre Dame, she sprained her left leg while tumbling into the uppercourt and down, suffering a tibia plateau fracture and a torn meniscus.
She missed 19 games in 2021-22, but returned from that injury late in the season and led UConn to its 14th straight Final Four.
Then, last August, during a preseason workout, she tore her ACL in the same knee and missed the entire 2022-23 season. The team went 31-6, but lost in the Sweet 16 to Ohio State.
Beckers wasn’t the only player injured by the Huskies. Freshman Ace Brady also missed the season with a knee injury, as did Izi Fudd (knee) and Caroline Ducharme (concussion), both of whom missed significant time.
In fact, the Huskies had to postpone a game in January when the team was unable to find seven healthy players to match.
Bickers said she can’t remember the last time she, Vaude, Ducharme, Nica Muhl, Alia Edwards and Aubrey Griffin were all healthy at the same time.
They hope to be in November at the start of next season. But Ducharme said they are taking it slow.
“There’s a difference between working too hard and overdoing it,” she said. “We’re all too familiar with getting injured and we’ve been through too much to be smart about it.”
For Bueckers, that means she likely won’t be playing in exhibition games in August when the Huskies travel to Croatia, Slovenia and Italy.
She said the goal is to be ready for the inaugural season and ultimately play better than when she was a freshman.
Beckers has spent the past year as “Coach B” sitting on the bench watching and learning from Gino Aureama and his staff. She said she picked out the little details that could mean the difference between winning and losing.
She’s also more mature, she said, and works on getting stronger in the weight room.
“So I think I’ll be better,” she said. “But while I was experiencing my sophomore season when I was trying to come back, it wasn’t as smooth as I would have wanted it to be. There are ups and downs, highs and lows, and I know when I first came back, I wasn’t the player I wanted to be. And I don’t rush it.” .
Partly because of those injuries, the Huskies are no longer considered the dominant team in women’s basketball.
But Fudd said they’re content to share the spotlight with LSU, South Carolina, Iowa, and other programs — for now.
“I don’t have a problem with not being talked about, not getting the respect we deserve,” she said. “When the season comes, we’ll go out and prove it and earn respect the hard way. Whether they think of us now, they’ll think of us a lot later.”
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