"How happy am I that I don't have to be tortured by her anymore": Geno Auriemma pokes fun at Paige Bueckers after "storybook" UConn ending
Geno Auriemma and Paige Bueckers finally won a national championship together, leading the UConn Huskies to an 82-59 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks in the finals of the 2025 NCAA Tournament on Sunday. Auriemma spoke to SNY reporter Chelsea Sherrod after the contest and he couldn't resist poking fun at his star player for the final time in a post-game interview setting.
Sherrod asked Auriemma how happy he was that his last game experience with Bueckers resulted in a national championship and she was able to do it alongside Azzi Fudd after everything they had been through.
"And how happy am I that I don’t have to be tortured by her anymore," Auriemma replied (Timestamp 0:13). "I mean it was like a storybook ending right?"
Geno Auriemma explained why Paige Bueckers' final collegiate game would be hard to top.
"When you have that kind of a career at a place like Connecticut and you mean so much to so many people and you’ve given so much to our school, to our program, to her teammates."
"For it to play out the way it did and to leave, playing your very last game in the national championship game and winning that game, I don’t think there could ever be a greater feeling that a player could have than walking off the court in your last game as a champion," Auriemma said.
How Paige Bueckers won her first NCAA Tournament under Geno Auriemma
The pressure was on Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma heading into the 2025 NCAA Tournament. They knew that this was Bueckers' final chance to win the coveted national championship in her illustrious college basketball career. The UConn star came close to capturing her first NCAA title in 2022, but ended up losing to Dawn Staley's South Carolina in the championship game.
Bueckers started her March Madness campaign with an 11-point outing in the first round against Arkansas State. UConn cruised to victory in that round-of-64 clash, recording a 103-34 victory.
Bueckers exploded in her next game against South Dakota State, matching her career-high with 34 points in UConn's 91-57 victory in the second round. She remained unstoppable in the Sweet 16, posting a new career-high against Oklahoma. She dropped 40 points on 16-for-27 shooting in the 82-59 win over the Sooners.
Bueckers preserved her 30-point streak in the Elite Eight against USC, scoring 31 points in the 78-64 win over the Trojans. She followed that up with a 16-point performance in UConn's 85-51 win over UCLA in the Final Four.
Bueckers scored 17 points in the finals against South Carolina. Those offensive numbers were enough to help UConn win its 12th national championship as the Huskies destroyed the Gamecocks by 23 points.