Paige Bueckers Looked Shaken Up on UConn Bench After Hurting Leg in Scary Collision

The Huskies guard appeared to suffer a leg injury after diving for a loose ball in Sunday's game against Villanova.

Screengrab on Twitter/ @SNYUConn

UConn Huskies star Paige Bueckers’ 100th career game for her school didn’t exactly go as planned.

Bueckers put up 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting in Sunday’s win against Villanova, but she saw her afternoon get cut short after suffering a scary collision with a Villanova defender.

Bueckers was trying to retrieve a loose ball in the third quarter when she collided with Villanova guard Jasmine Bascoe, who then rolled onto Bueckers’s left leg. Bueckers awkwardly collapsed on the ground and immediately grabbed at her left knee, the same one she seriously injured twice in her college career. 

Bueckers was able to limp off the court into the locker room. She returned to the Huskies’ bench shortly after and appeared visibly emotional and teary-eyed over the incident.

Paige Bueckers returns to the UConn bench: pic.twitter.com/DajmOmkY7A

— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) January 5, 2025

UConn coach Geno Auriemma told reporters after the game that he was “optimistic” about Bueckers’s injury.

“It's like what I said about Azzi [Fudd], these freaky things that happen when somebody runs into you,” Auriemma said. “Like what it was with Azzi, it's not the worst thing that we can imagine, so that's great news considering how awkward it was.”

Bueckers, who’s currently playing in her senior season at UConn, has made her way back from two significant knee injuries in the past two years, suffering a lateral meniscus tear and tibial plateau fracture in her sophomore year as well as an ACL tear that caused her to miss her entire junior year. Both injuries were to her left knee.

The projected No. 1 2025 WNBA draft pick is just 18 points shy of hitting the 2,000 mark in her fifth year with the program. UConn went on to trounce Villanova, 83-52.

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