play
Paige Bueckers’ high performs from the 2021-22 season (1:59)
Have a look again at Paige Bueckers’ greatest performs from the 2021-22 season. (1:59)
Alexa Philippou, ESPNAug 9, 2023, 08:59 PM ET
The UConn Huskies‘ Paige Bueckers, the 2020-21 ladies’s faculty basketball nationwide participant of the yr, has been cleared roughly one yr after ACL surgical procedure on her left knee, she introduced on Instagram on Wednesday.
“All cleared and prepared for takeoff,” Bueckers posted, including “369” in reference to the variety of days since her surgical procedure. “GOD DID!”
Bueckers mentioned earlier this summer that she was collaborating in all basketball actions apart from stay 5-on-5 play. Coach Geno Auriemma instructed reporters in late June that she was “90%” recovered and is predicted to be out there at first of the 2023-24 season. The one-year anniversary mark of her ACL surgical procedure was Aug. 5.
The 5-11 guard from Minnesota has missed nearly all of the previous two seasons resulting from left knee accidents — the primary, a tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscus tear in December of her sophomore season and the second, the ACL tear suffered in August earlier than her junior yr. Following a stunning collegiate debut marketing campaign by which she took residence just about each particular person accolade, Bueckers appeared in 17 video games as a sophomore earlier than lacking her whole junior season.
Auriemma had been very complimentary about Bueckers’ progress when he final spoke with the media. “That is the most effective she’s ever been, the strongest she’s ever been, the fittest she’s ever been,” Auriemma mentioned. “That is probably the most time she has spent engaged on her physique, her thoughts, [and] simply caring for herself. … [The injury layoff] confirmed her, in order for you an extended profession, that is the way you’re gonna must go about it from right here on in accidents, no accidents, it does not matter. That is what you are gonna must do. And she or he’s embraced it.”
The Huskies are eyeing this system’s twelfth nationwide championship going into the 2023-24 season. They fell within the nationwide title sport 2022 to South Carolina and had their streak of 14 consecutive Remaining 4 appearances snapped in 2023 with a loss to Ohio State within the Candy 16. They’re No. 2 in ESPN’s Manner-Too-Early Rankings behind defending nationwide champion LSU.
UConn’s Paige Bueckers says she’s totally cleared and ‘prepared for takeoff’
