UConn Huskies: Ex-NBA player suggests race component for Paige Bueckers’ lack of popularity

UConn Huskies women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers has performed at a high level during the NCAA Tournament and most recently scored 40 points in a Sweet 16 game against Oklahoma.

Anyone who had been following Bueckers since the beginning of her collegiate career knows that games like the one against the Sooners were par for the course. She dropped 34 points against South Dakota State in the second round as well.

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UConn guards Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers on the bench against Arkansas State in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Storrs, Connecticut (AP Photo/Jessica Hil;)

But her popularity has yet to skyrocket like Caitlin Clark’s when the sharpshooter was winning games at Iowa and setting NCAA records in scoring. Former NBA center Etan Thomas suggested in a column for The Guardian last week there were a few reasons for that.

Thomas wrote that Bueckers’ associations with Black people and the lack of a so-called “Black villain” to contend with in the NCAA Tournament affected how White people saw the Huskies guard. He pointed to Bueckers’ decision to shoutout Black women during her ESPYs speech in 2021 as the start of it.

“Meanwhile, there has been no Black villain for Bueckers to compete against,” Thomas wrote, alluding to Clark’s on-court rivalry with LSU standout Angel Reese. “The fact that that has meant she has gained less attention and adoration from middle America says a lot about the state of the country.”

UConn guard Paige Bueckers runs through the student section at Gampel Pavilion after a game against South Dakota State in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Storrs. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

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Thomas claimed people who didn’t have an interest in women’s basketball all of a sudden became fans for all the “worst reasons,” adding that “they were there to cheer Clark’s Whiteness, and attack Reese’s Blackness, not their talent.”

He then wrote that Bueckers’ decision to cook for her Muslim teammates during Ramadan, sing gospel songs and has a Black stepmother and stepsiblings supposedly “simply doesn’t sit well with ‘that certain demographic,’ who embraced Clark and championed her for the “wrong reasons.”

Bueckers is averaging 19.8 points, 4.7 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game. She’s a part of a sorority of legendary Huskies players who have come before her, though she’s missing the one thing great alumni like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Breanna Stewart have – a national title.

UConn guard Paige Bueckers passes the ball during the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament against Oklahoma, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Spokane, Washington. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

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It’s likely that Bueckers will be the No. 1 pick of the WNBA Draft and it will be fun to watch her go up against Clark, Reese, Cameron Brink, Arike Ogunbowale, Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and others when she takes the court in the pros. 

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