A flood of tears. A hug that said it all. And a moment years in the making between a coach and his star. With 1:32 left in the national championship game, the scoreboard told one story—UConn up by 29 points, coasting to its 12th title—but Paige Bueckers told another. She walked off the court and into Geno Auriemma’s arms, buried her head in his chest, and finally let go. “I love you. That’s all I could say. I love you,” Auriemma later recalled. For Bueckers, who replied with a joking, “I told him I hated him,” the weight behind those words was far heavier than it sounded. Because the five years between their first handshake and that last hug were anything but ordinary.

A few days after that historic win, Paige sat down for an interview with NBC Connecticut. Amid light laughter and tears she tried to fight back, she opened a window into the relationship that shaped her career.

“You call him evil genius,” the interviewer said. “He says he calls you Einstein.”
Paige smiled. “Yeah, his Einstein is very sarcastic, and it’s never used in a positive way where he’s actually calling me smart.”

She followed that up with tales only she could tell. Like the time she smacked Geno’s backside during the Iowa game back in her freshman year—“Just giving him a hard time and also letting him know whenever he’s wrong and I’m right, I like to do that.” It was pure Paige: equal parts fire, fun, and fearlessness.

And Geno gave it right back. In January 2021, during a postgame press conference, Paige interrupted to ask, “What kind of product do you use?”
Auriemma quipped, “I actually don’t have any product, but I noticed it was getting really dry, so I thought I would try to use some of your sweat… but I noticed you never sweat ’cause you don’t exert yourself defensively at all.”

Their banter was a trademark, built over countless hours on and off the court. There was the celebratory butt-pat during the Sweet 16 win over Iowa in 2021. The time she compared Geno to the grumpy Carl from Up via a Lego display on Instagram. The day he joked about banning her from practice while she recovered from injury—“For me, it was like Christmas Day.”

Yet for all the laughs, the backbone of their relationship was trust, forged in struggle. Injuries haunted Paige’s time at UConn. At one point in 2025, returning from a knee sprain, she believed her minutes restriction was over. Geno later revealed, “She said she wasn’t [on any minutes restriction].” It wasn’t just miscommunication—it was Paige being Paige, pushing every boundary, including the ones set to protect her.

But she never doubted her decision to come to Storrs.

Paige, Geno, UConn—Three Names, One Unfinished Love Letter to the Game

“Extremely happy,” Paige Bueckers said when asked how she felt about choosing UConn at 17. “I think this has been—I’ve said it a lot lately—but I’m living in my childhood dream and everything that I wanted to be and everywhere I wanted to be.”

Her admiration for the program and its legendary coach, Geno Auriemma, ran deep. Back in a 2020 interview with Ballislife, she put it simply: “I couldn’t pass it up. It was my dream school.”

Years later, that dream still hits different. Her voice softened as she added, “I just thank God every single time I get to wake up and it’s a game day and I get to wear this UConn uniform. The environment is insane… The relationships, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Even the interviewer couldn’t hold back: “You’re making me cry.” “I’m trying not to,” Paige replied, “I’m not ready for the emotions yet, but I’m not folding… There’s going to be one day where it just all pours out, but, I mean, to be a part of UConn…” Her voice trailed off, but the meaning didn’t.

The tears on championship night weren’t just about winning. They were about finishing. About finally doing what she came to do. After five years, 2 Final Fours, a national title, an ACL tear, and an endless reel of highs and lows, Paige Bueckers walked off the court not just as a champion, but as something much more rare—someone who saw the whole journey through.

And for Geno Auriemma, it wasn’t just about one of the most talented players he’s ever coached.
“She’s different. That’s it. She’s different,” Auriemma said. “That’s evident every time you see her play.”

They say in basketball, the floor reveals everything. On April 7, it showed us something deeper—loyalty, love, legacy. Paige Bueckers was always a coach on the floor. But that night, she was just a kid saying goodbye to the coach who helped her become one.