HARTFORD, Conn. Paige Bueckers vs. Caitlin Clark.
The matchup of two sensational freshman stars has taken on a life its own in this women’s NCAA Tournament. It has turned Saturday’s 1 p.m. UConn-Iowa Sweet 16 game into a must-see event on ABC, even for the casual observer.
Carla Berube knows first-hand what all the fuss is about. She’s one of the few who can say she coached both Bueckers and Clark during a special summer with Team USA’s Under-16 team. She also remembers having to call them off the court to rest because they just didn’t know when to stop working on their games.
“Paige and Caitlin, they both can score at will,” Berube said. “They both can get to the rim, both can take pull-ups, they both can shoot from well beyond the arc, they both see the floor so well. I think they read their teammates well and see the play happening before its happening, and with both of them their teammates need to really be ready because the ball’s going to get there at a pretty quick pace.
“Both are really tremendous competitors. They’re both those players you want to have the ball in their hands at the end of a game, at the end of a shot clock. They were both a joy to coach, and watching them right now, they’re the same as they were when they were 15 years old. They both love the game so much. So much passion comes out.”
Berube, 45, who played on UConn’s first championship team, the undefeated 1995 Huskies, is in the prime of a long, successful career in coaching. After winning 80% of her games in 17 seasons at Tufts, she moved to Princeton in May of 2019 and had a 29-1 record when the COVID-19 pandemic finished her first season. The Ivy League has been idle since March 2020.
Back in June 2017, Berube had an array of generational talent in her hands, assembling, preparing, coaching the U16 team at the FIBA Americas Championship in Argentina. How good? Bueckers and Clark usually came off the bench. Team USA outscored five opponents 459-190, beating Canada 91-46 for the title. It was a core of talent that Louisville’s Jeff Walz, who coached Bueckers, Clark and several others at the U19 championships in Bangkok two years later, calls “one of the best freshman classes that we’ve had in a long time in women’s basketball.”
Berube’s team also included South Carolina star Aliyah Boston and UConn-bound Azzi Fudd. Bueckers and Clark, two of the younger players on the team, sometimes played together with Clark handling the ball averaging 8.8 points, and Bueckers, playing the off guard or wing, averaging 11.0 points
“Unselfish” was the word Berube kept going back to as she remembered these two.
“I thought Caitlin was more of a true point guard, where Paige can play the one, the two or the three. So she played a little more off the ball for us,” Berube said. “It’s hard to pick out Paige and Caitlin playing together. Any time any five of them stepped on the court, it looked like they had been playing basketball together a really long time. The way the ball moved, so unselfish. I’ve never seen a team put together so quickly and the chemistry formed so well. These are players who have been told since they were very young how great they are, but sometimes I think they were too unselfish, where we passed up too many easy shots because they just wanted the best, best shot.”
Clark, 6-foot-0, from West Des Moines, Iowa, played 33.7 minutes per game for the Hawkeyes this year, leading the nation with 26.8 points per game and tied for the lead in assists with 7.2. All that Bueckers, 5-11, from Hopkins, Minn., has done for UConn (27-1) is well known around here, and her stats, 19.9 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds, don’t begin to tell that story.
Living in New Jersey with no games to coach this season, Berube was able to follow the Huskies on SNY. She took the chance to tweak Bueckers when she noticed her much-improved defense. “I think it’s surprising that Paige is actually playing some defense,” she said, half-joking. “I texted her after one game, I heard Meghan Pattyson-Culmo said something about Paige being this incredible defender and I texted her and said, ‘Whaaaat?’ I harped on her for two summers that she had to play both ends of the floor. She’s a long guard and she can wreak some havoc. And I’ve seen some awesome leadership from her.
“Caitlin, when she chose Iowa, I knew she was going to make a difference right away. I didn’t know she’d be leading the country in points and assists. But big moments have not bothered her whatsoever. She’s ready for anything.”
So it’s on to Saturday’s showdown. Of course, the individual matchup is hyped up, as is always the case when two bright stars share the same court. Sure, it’s No. 5 seed Iowa vs. No. 1 seed UConn, team vs. team, and Berube expects the talent surrounding Bueckers will make the difference here, but when players have this kind of magnetism, it transcends logic. There is no escaping the electricity, even in a near-empty Alamodome.
“They’ve been hyped all their lives,” Berube said. “I don’t think this moment is going to be too big for them. I don’t think either of them is going to think, ‘Oh, it’s Caitlin vs. Paige.’ I don’t think it’s going to be like, ‘If Paige makes a shot, then Caitlin’s got to make a shot.’ They’re going to work within the framework of their teams. But it’s fun, it’s fun for the fans. These are two of the best players in the country right now, and it’s so fun that they’re freshmen and they’re leading their teams. There’s a purity about their games, they’re just so talented.”
