UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers ruled out vs. Xavier with left knee sprain

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STORRS — UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma announced Tuesday that superstar Paige Bueckers sustained a sprain in her left knee during the Huskies’ win at Villanova on Sunday, and she will likely be unavailable for at least the next week.

Auriemma said Bueckers won’t play in No. 7 UConn’s next Big East matchup against Xavier at the XL Center on Wednesday (7:30 p.m., SNY), and she is also expected to miss Saturday’s game at Georgetown. Auriemma compared the fifth-year senior’s injury to the minor knee sprain star guard Azzi Fudd suffered in December that kept her out of three games.

“I think I was right because I said that for Paige it was going to be similar to what the scenario was for Azzi, and it turned out to be pretty much the exact same thing,” Auriemma said. “It’s a sprain. There’s nothing torn, nothing crazy about it … We’re hoping that we have her back in a week.”

The fifth-year senior went down in the final two minutes of the third quarter against Villanova, landing on the floor in visible pain and grabbing her knee after Wildcats freshman Jasmine Bascoe fell into the back of her legs chasing after a loose ball. Bueckers walked off the court on her own power but was limping as she exited the floor and went straight to the locker room with a UConn athletic trainer. She was in tears as she returned to the bench a few minutes later and spent the rest of the game with a bag of ice around her left knee and ankle.

“You can’t explain it sometimes. One kid’s trying to get the ball, the other kid wants the ball,” Auriemma said. “It’s in the heat of the moment. So if you look back at it and you watched the video, you would go, who had the best access to that ball? But kids are kids, and they want to win, and they want to play hard, so from what I could see, I didn’t see anything other than than a basketball play.”

Bueckers played all 39 games during the 2023-24 season, averaging more than 30 minutes, but she was sidelined…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/uconn-women-basketball-star-paige-201000118.html

Author : Hartford Courant

Publish date : 2025-01-07 20:10:00

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