Eden Laase
May 9, 2023
“Coach Paige” became a staple of college basketball this season as UConn’s Paige Bueckers helped guide her teammates from the sidelines. Over the weekend, Coach Paige was back to work, mentoring the country’s top high school players as part of the Overtime Takeover event.
Bueckers is a natural leader, and the rising senior is passionate about shepherding future college players.
“I was in their shoes just a couple of years ago, looking up to other college athletes, WNBA athletes” she toldJust Women’s Sports. “So for them to have an outlet, and a person like me, who I feel like has experienced a lot, and seen a lot, willing to give them advice and help them out in any way, is important.”
Not all of Bueckers’ experiences have been good. The 2022-23 season in particular was riddled with challenges, as Bueckers missed the whole season recovering from an ACL injury sustained before the first game was played.
Friday marked nine months since the injury occurred, and Paige the coach, and Paige the player, are on track to become one in the same again, soon.
“I’m continuing my road to recovery,” Bueckers said. “I’m starting to see the finish line, and the light at the end of the tunnel. There has been a lot of hard work over the past nine months, and honestly I am just continuing that this summer. I’m hoping to get back on the floor soon.”
The UConn guard also missed a chunk of the 2021-22 season with an anterior tibial plateau fracture and a lateral meniscus tear on her left leg. She underwent surgery and returned to the floor in time to lead UConn to the Final Four.
When she’s on the floor, Bueckers is averaging 18 points, 5.1 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2 steals per game. A dominant freshman campaign led to Bueckers being awarded Player of the Year honors.
Bueckers has an entire network of former UConn players behind her as the guard continues her recovery. It’s been that way since she first decided to play for the Huskies, Bueckers says, but now, it’s more important than ever.
Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart have offered words of wisdom and encouragement to Bueckers throughout the process. Both have battled major injuries during their careers, with Stewart tearing her achilles in 2019, and Bird injuring her ACL during her freshman season at UConn.
Any time she deals with adversity, Bueckers remembers something Stewart said to her: “It’s a small thing to a giant.”
“There are going to be little things that knock you down,” Bueckers said. “Nobody’s career has ever been perfect. It’s more about how you handle adversity that says a lot about you, and the way you bounce back and attack anything that tries to knock you down.”
Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter@eden_laase.
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JWS Team
Mar 26, 2024
As part of our 1-v-1 video series, USC’s India Otto sat down to interview teammate JuJu Watkins.
Here are five things to know from our conversation with the freshman phenom from LA.
#1 JuJu defines her purpose as wanting to inspire others to not place limits on themselves.
Her advice to younger athletes is to “take a step back and just realize how grateful you are to be around so many great people and be in an environment where you’re able to have an impact on others. And don’t take that for granted any day.” She recommends “just always being in constant awe of how far you’ve come.”
#2 JuJu is self-reflective when it comes to the impact of her growing social media fame.
"People are always going to have something to say, so I think just taking that mindset that you can’t be perfect and everybody’s always going to have an opinion on something.”
#3 An LA native, JuJu says the state of basketball in LA is “just booming right now.”
“The Pac-12 and LA is just amazing, and I’m just glad that I’m able to be a part of that and feel the atmosphere every night.”
#4 JuJu is known for her drip.
Her favorite brands are Rick Owens, Alexander Wang, and Nike. And if she could have dinner with any three people (dead or alive), she would choose Drake, Bob Marley, and Beyonce.
#5 JuJu’s favorite piece of advice:
“To whom much is given. Much is required.”
Watch the full conversation on the Just Women’s Sports YouTube channel.
Emma Hruby
Mar 26, 2024
The Utah women’s basketball team was forced to change hotels last Friday after experiencing what coach Lynne Roberts said was a series of “racial hate crimes” ahead of their first-round NCAA tournament game.
Following the team’s second-round loss to Gonzaga, Roberts told reporters about the incidents but did not go into detail.
Early on Tuesday, KSL.com reported that the N-word was yelled at members of the basketball team, as well as those part of the traveling party, which included cheerleaders and the school band. This reportedly happened multiple times as they were walking to and from a restaurant near their hotel.
Originally, the team was located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho – more than 30 miles east of the McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane. Both the NCAA and Gonzaga, the host school, helped the team relocate to a hotel in Spokane for the remainder of their stay.
"We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that? ... Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen," Utah deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com of the initial incident. "We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can't believe that."
While the team continued on, they were met with a similar situation as they left the restaurant.
"I got emotional and started to cry," Green said, adding that she was “numb” for the rest of the night. "I will never forget the sound that I heard, the intimidation of the noise that came from that engine, and the word (N-word). I go to bed and I hear it every night since I've been here. ... I couldn't imagine us having to stay there and relive those moments."
The team coordinated a way to walk back to the hotel together to ensure their safety.
"Incredibly upsetting for all of us," Roberts said Monday night. "You think in our world, in athletics and the university settings, it's shocking. There's so much diversity on a college campus and so you're just not exposed to that very often. And so when you are, it's like, you have people say, 'Man, I can't believe that happened.' But racism is real and it happens, and it's awful.
"So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting. And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA Tournament environment, that's messed up."
The team’s police escort was unable to do anything as they were from Washington and outside of their jurisdiction.
"We were actually rather taken aback by our accommodations, because when we were planning to host we were having similar issues in which we were seeking hotels either in Provo or Park City or Ogden, and the NCAA said no to that, so the fact that we were sent to a place that wasn't even the state that the university who's hosting resides was incredibly problematic," Green said.
Following Roberts’ press conference, Gonzaga issued a statement saying that the first priority is the safety and welfare of everyone competing.
"We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know what should always be an amazing visitor and championship experience was in any way compromised by this situation for it in no way reflects the values, standards and beliefs to which we at Gonzaga University hold ourselves accountable," the statement said.
Several years ago, Spokane was host to the first and second rounds of the men’s NCAA tournament. At the time, a large regional youth volleyball tournament was also set to take place. Gonzaga received a waiver from the NCAA to allow teams to be housed in Coeur d’Alene.
Utah AD Mark Harlan told KSL.com the team “should not have been" in Coeur d’Alene.
"I do appreciate the NCAA and Gonzaga moving us from that situation, but we should never have been there in the first place. So a lot of folks need to get home and heal from the whole matter.
"But for Charmelle Green and what she's done in terms of being the director of this group, being the victim of this, along with so many others, is something that is going to take a long time for us all to process. It's not the experience that our student-athletes and our students overall should have experienced."
As of 2018, in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho, at least nine hate groups operate in the region, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America's Promise Ministries, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Utah has since filed a police report on the racial hate crimes, but there have been no updates since the report was filed.
"It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate," Roberts said. "This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate."
Emma Hruby
Mar 26, 2024
The USWNT’s SheBelieves Cup roster dropped on Tuesday, with some familiar faces back in the lineup.
For the first time in two years, Catarina Macario is back with the USWNT after tearing her ACL in 2022. She joins Mallory Swanson, who is back in the lineup for the first time since tearing her patellar tendon a year ago. It comes after she joined the USWNT last camp as a training player.
“We're thrilled to welcome back Mal and Cat and continue to incorporate some less experienced players into the mix,” interim coach Twil Kilgore said.
They’re joined by first-time call-ups in 16-year-old Ajax midfielder Lily Yohannes and 21-year-old Paris Saint-Germain defender Eva Gaetino. Both players started for their respective teams in the most recent UEFA Champions League quarter final matches.
Of the 23-player roster, six play professionally in Europe. Seventeen of the 23 play in the NWSL. It’s a departure from last year’s World Cup roster, in which 22 of the 23 players on the USWNT roster played in the NWSL.
Yohannes is the youngest player to receive a call-up to the USWNT since Sophia Smith – then 16 – joined the team in April 2017. It also comes days after Netherlands coach Andries Jonker said that she had expressed interest in playing for the Netherlands and that she had begun the process of acquiring Dutch citizenship.
At the time Hayes, who was coaching Chelsea in the team’s quarter final match against Ajax, said that she wouldn’t try to recruit Yohannes to the USWNT, but called her a “tremendous talent.”
"Her final pass is exceptional," Hayes said of Yohannes. "She's got the ability, especially in tight areas she can get out of pressure really well. But her vision, the quality of her execution is really, really high. Sometimes I don't believe she's 16 years of age because she plays with such maturity, but a wonderful talent."
Also among the team’s forwards is Alex Morgan, who was only called into the Gold Cup camp after Mia Fishel tore her ACL. Midge Purce, Alana Cook, Rose Lavelle and Lynn Williams are all absent from the roster due to injuries.
USWNT 2024 SheBelieves Cup Roster
Goalkeepers (3): Jane Campbell (Houston Dash), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars)
Defenders (8): Abby Dahlkemper (San Diego Wave FC), Crystal Dunn (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Tierna Davidson (NY/NJ Gotham FC), Emily Fox (Arsenal FC), Eva Gaetino (Paris Saint-Germain), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC), Casey Krueger (Washington Spirit), Jenna Nighswonger (NY/NJ Gotham FC)
Midfielders (6): Korbin Albert (Paris Saint-Germain), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon, FRA), Olivia Moultrie (Portland Thorns FC), Emily Sonnett (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Lily Yohannes (AFC Ajax)
Forwards (6): Catarina Macario (Chelsea FC), Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave FC), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars)
Emma Hruby
Mar 26, 2024
Gotham FC head coach Juan Carlos Amorós took aim at the timing of the Concacaf W Gold Cup after Midge Purce went down with an injury on Sunday.
The forward left Sunday’s 1-0 with a knee injury, after tweaking it earlier in the game. More information is expected on Purce’s injury after further evaluation, with no immediate updates after the match.
But it’s indicative of a larger issue for Gotham, with Purce’s USWNT and Gotham teammates Rose Lavelle and Lynn Williams also on the injury list. Both have yet to be available for the club due to knocks they picked up at the Gold Cup, which took place during NWSL preseason.
“We lost Midge during the game which for me is a bittersweet flavor,” Amorós told reporters after Sunday’s game. “By the way, it’s another player that came from the Gold Cup. Last week, it was Debinha. We are paying the consequences of a tournament that shouldn’t have happened.”
The Kansas City Current confirmed last week that Debinha will miss a number of games with a hamstring injury that she suffered after returning from Gold Cup duty with Brazil.
Amorós doesn’t yet know the extent of Purce’s injury, but pointed to the Gold Cup as the cause, joining growing concerns over the packed international and club schedule and its relation to injuries.
Concacaf recently announced a new competition that will begin in August with some of the top club teams in North and South America.
“We’re talking about protecting the players, [who shouldn’t] go to play an international competition after one week of preseason,” Amorós said. “We’ve seen the consequences now. We’ve got Rose, Lynn, last week it was Debinha in Kansas [City] and now we have Midge. From my experience, the clubs are going to keep paying for that competition. Unfortunately, in this case, it was Midge and I hope it’s not too serious.”
