Dawn Staley can’t help but name Caitlin Clark when speaking about Paige Bueckers

Caitlin Clark failed to win a national title during her college career, and Dawn Staley believes a narrative was pushed during the 2024 NCAA Tournament that is happening again with Paige Bueckers

South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley referenced Caitlin Clark’s failure to win a national championship as she outlined her thoughts on Paige Bueckers’ collegiate legacy ahead of the Final Four showdown with UConn.

Before taking the WNBA by storm during her rookie season, Clark enjoyed a record-breaking spell at Iowa, departing college as the all-time leading scorer – men or women – in NCAA history. She led the Hawkeyes to back-to-back national championship game appearances, losing to LSU and South Carolina respectively.

When Staley’s Gamecocks emerged victorious to complete an incredible undefeated season, much of the commentary fixated on Clark’s perceived failure. The 54-year-old is now suggesting the same narrative is building for Bueckers.

Bueckers’ collegiate career with UConn started strong, as she led the Huskies to a Final Four appearance while she was named National Player of the Year. But a torn ACL injury sidelined her for the entire 2022-23 season, and she is now back to her best as she chases a national championship in her final March Madness.

When asked to comment on Bueckers and her college basketball legacy win-or-lose in the Final Four, Staley eloquently said: “Well, I’m going to tread lightly with this. Here’s the thing, sometimes we create these narratives about great players – Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now – and we tend to forget the narrative about what our kids have been able to do and going for their third in four years. So there’s a sentimental narrative about Paige.

“A great freakin’ player. Anybody would start their franchise with Paige because of her efficient way of playing, because she’s a winner, because she cerebrally just knows the game, just has an aura about her. And she’ll be the number one pick in the WNBA draft. And she’ll be an Olympian. She’ll be all those things.

Bueckers is hoping to leave college and enter the WNBA as a national champion ( 
Image:
Getty Images)
“But when you put a narrative out there, everybody sees that, and it puts us at a disadvantage, whether you want to believe so or not. Officials see it. It’s all over TikTok. It’s all over SportsCenter. It’s all over all of that. And she’s a great player but just because you’re a great player doesn’t mean you need to win the national championship to legitimize it. Paige is legit. She was legit from the moment she stepped on this stage or prior to, in Minnesota. Her career is legendary. She will leave a legacy at UConn whether she wins one or not. I just want to put it out there. I can’t not address it because it’s happening.“

Staley outlined similarities to Clark in regards to the narrative, insisting she just wants the spotlight to be on her South Carolina players too. She added: “It happened to us last year. Everything was about Caitlin Clark and her legacy and her ability to win a national championship. Yet we were coming into this thing undefeated, doing something that’s unprecedented at the time, because it’s hard. It’s hard. We find ourselves back here in a similar situation. I want the sentiments to be about our players and what our players have been able to do – equally, because there’s room to do both.

“We can raise Paige up because she deserves that and raise our players up because they deserve that. And that’s not talked about enough. There’s room for it in our game. Room for Jose. Room for our game, for all of us to be covered. Let’s not choose a history, one’s history over another program’s history. Let’s not choose one player over another player’s history because we’re all creating history for our game.”

Bueckers has averaged 20.0 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 4.7 assists across the 2024-25 season. UConn takes on Staley’s reigning champion South Carolina in the Final Four on Sun., April 6.