Paige Bueckers can’t lie—watching March Madness games from home just feels weird.
“I have FOMO,” Bueckers told Sports Illustrated in an interview on behalf of Wingstop. “I just want to be out there competing. This is one of the most fun times of the year.”
It was just one year ago that Bueckers reached the pinnacle of March Madness, winning it all with UConn in dominant fashion over South Carolina for the Huskies’ 12th championship. It was a storybook ending to Bueckers’s time in Storrs.
While it was a thrill, Bueckers is thankful, at least in part, to not be taking the court this time around.
“It’s fun watching it from a different perspective,” Bueckers said. “You don’t get so worked up, you don’t have the same anxiety and nerves as you did when you were playing, and you kind of get to watch from a just a fan view. So I’ve been rooting for the squad, and I think just both tournaments have been really exciting and there’s been a lot of really fun games to watch.”
The Huskies will aim to close out their undefeated season with a second straight trophy, while the men’s squad has its eyes on another title after a thrilling upset win over Duke in the Elite Eight. Bueckers will be in Phoenix cheering on her former program as both teams chase history.
While Bueckers, now a member of the WNBA’s Dallas Wings, has been physically apart from the Huskies, she still often keeps in touch with coach Geno Auriemma and her former teammates. Most recently, she stopped by one of the team’s practices to provide support ahead of the Sweet 16.
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Bueckers often finds herself watching games while enjoying some Wingstop, which was her celebratory meal of choice after winning the national championship last year—and she’s ready to run it back this year with another title.
“We’ll basically order every single flavor and we’ll just run the tab up,” Bueckers said.
This weekend, both UConn teams will have the chance to add to their legacy; the women’s team is looking to take home the program’s 13th championship, while the men’s team will vie for its third title in four years. Unsurprisingly, Bueckers has the Huskies winning on both sides in her Final Four predictions.
As for her picks for Most Outstanding Player, she is choosing Alex Karaban on the men’s side, calling him the “ultimate competitor.” For the women, she had a more difficult time choosing.
“That’s tough cause like, the Final Four last year was Azzi [Fudd]’s MOP," Bueckers said. “So I’m saying I want her to have a great Final Four and championship too, but also Sarah Strong, it’s hard to bet against her. So I’m going to just say they can share it.”
With hopes of a championship sweep alive, Bueckers says it’s never been clearer who runs college basketball.
“I mean, we’ve said it before, we feel like it’s the basketball capital of the world,” Bueckers said. “It’s funny cause we won one last year while I was at school, the men won two, so we were trying to get it correlated to where we could win it in the same year, but it didn’t happen. So, there’s a great chance for it to happen this year, and that would be really, really fulfilling to our basketball capital of the world statement.”
More March Madness from Sports Illustrated
- SI:AM | One Thing to Know About Each Final Four Game
- This May Be a Familiar Women’s Final Four, but It’s Not a Rerun of Last Year
- March Madness: Three Bold Predictions for Men’s Final Four
- South Carolina vs. UConn Prediction, Odds, Key Player for Women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Paige Bueckers Hypes ‘Basketball Capital of the World’ UConn Ahead of Final Four.
