UConn's Geno Auriemma Ribs Paige Bueckers With Minutes Restriction Enforcement
The UConn Huskies women's basketball team improved to 16-2 in the 2024-25 NCAA season after they cruised to a 71-45 victory over the St. John's Red Storm on January 15.
Since the expectation was that UConn would win this game with relative ease, a lot of the attention was on how star guard Paige Bueckers would fare in her first game back after suffering a knee sprain on January 5.
While Bueckers was moving well enough on the court, she only finished the game with 12 points (on 4 of 7 shooting from the field), 5 rebounds, and 2 steals in 23 minutes played.
23 minutes is the least amount of time Bueckers has played in a game all season. Therefore, it made sense for Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma to be asked whether she was on a minutes restriction on Wednesday due to her returning from the injury.
"Well, she said she wasn't," Auriemma said in response to this question, per an X post from SNY. "How many minutes did she play? 23?
"Yeah, she said 'I'm not on a minutes restriction.' I said, 'Well actually, you are. But it will have nothing to do with your leg'" Auriemma added with a smile. "'It will be everything [about] how you play.' That's why I couldn't wait to get her out in the first half."
He then added, "I was hoping for like 20, 21, 22, maybe 10, 11 minutes each half. So I think we hit the mark pretty close."
We imagine Bueckers will have her minutes extended when UConn faces Seton Hall on January 19.