How good is Paige Bueckers? We asked the coaches who faced her in high school (2024)

When former Edina High School coach Matt Nilsen heard Paige Bueckers would be going to UConn and the Huskies would be returning to the Big East, hehad a conversation with his wife. Maybe they’d consider driving the five hours to see Bueckers play at Marquette or Creighton?

“There’s not a lot of kids I’ve coached against that I would probably ever go do that for,” Nilsen said with a laugh.

But Bueckers wasn’t like most high school players in Minnesota, and Nilsen had known that for a long time. He first saw Bueckers play when she was in fourth grade at a girls basketball tournament with his daughter, who’s a year older. Nilsen was immediately struck by Bueckers’ ball handling, passing and body control, years before she would join Hopkins High School’s varsity team as an eighth-grader.

Nilsen wasn’t alone in his coaching assessment. Multiple people who sat on the opposing bench said the first time they watched Bueckers play, they knew she was headed far beyond the courts of Minnesota.

And what about the one who coached that talent for all those years?

“It’s like asking Phil Jackson, ‘What’s it like being (Michael) Jordan’s coach?’” said Brian Cosgriff, the recently retired Hopkins coach. “Or asking Geno (Auriemma), ‘What’s it like to be Diana Taurasi’s coach?’ I once heard Geno say that the difference in the game was, ‘I had Diana Taurasi and they didn’t.’ And that’s kind of the way it was with Paige. We’d joke about it, but we always had ‘Plan A’ going into a game and, if that didn’t work, we called it ‘Plan P’: Get the ball to Paige and let her do her thing.”

Cosgriff and Bueckers took Hopkins to five straight Class 4A state championship game appearances and a 62-0 record to close her high school career. As a senior, Bueckers averaged 21 points, 9.2 assists, 5.2 steals and 5.1 rebounds per game. A standout on USA Basketball youth teams and the No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2020, Bueckers was recruited by Notre Dame, Minnesota and other top programs before choosing UConn, her dream school. Most recently, she was named the Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year.

In Minnesota, a game against Bueckers and Hopkins was a marquee matchup. It was one coaches looked forward to more than others because they wanted to be the team to knock them off. Bueckers closed out every high school season with a chance to win it all, and after three losses in the state finals, she led Hopkins to a title her junior season. She might’ve had another if COVID-19 had not forced the cancellation of the championship game this past spring.

What was it like to compete against Bueckers in high school as her game and profile grew? To find out, we spoke with the coaches who faced her in each of the state championship games, beginning with her freshman year.

Elk River coach Jeremy Digiovanni remembers having one day to game plan for the state championship game against Hopkins, who, like his team, was undefeated that year. He and his coaching staff agreed that if they could keep Bueckers under 20 points, they would have a shot. After four straight losses in the regional finals, Elk River was determined to win it all.

“There’s a Hopkins mystique here in Minnesota,” Digiovanni said. “It’s probably like it is on the college level when teams walk on the floor and have to play UConn.

“I think the biggest credit we can give Paige is that, as a freshman, she was the focal point of what we had to do.”

Despite Bueckers’ late first-half run and tying 3 attempt in the final seconds, Elk River held on for the win, 64-60. Bueckers finished with a team-high 19 points.

Digiovanni called Bueckers the best player on the floor. His team didn’t face her again after that year, but Digiovanni said he would have taken a similar approach if they had: Contain her rather than try to shut her down. That meant playing Bueckers man-to-man with a solid on-ball defender and trying to force her into taking tough shots. That strategy became increasingly more difficult for Hopkins opponents as the players around Bueckers improved.

“It really would be a pick-your-poison kind of thing, I think,” Digiovanni said. “Do you let Paige go and hope that one-on-one you can wear her down maybe and limit the quality shots she gets? Or do you double-team her and you’re going to leave someone else wide open? And those kids are good enough to hurt you themselves.”

Eastview had faced Hopkins earlier that season and purposefully avoided showing its whole hand. Coach Molly Kasper had a feeling they’d see Hopkins again in the state tournament and wanted to throw everything at them then, especially against Bueckers, then a sophom*ore.

“I said, ‘She’s gonna hit phenomenal shots,’” Kasper said. “I flat out told them she’s gonna be in the WNBA one day, and I was like, ‘That’s OK. So when she hits a tough shot in your face, look at her and say “nice shot” and turn around.'”

Bueckersdid her part early, scoring 23 points in the first half. Eastview went into halftime down just threeand carried that momentum into the second half. Hopkins pulled within one point with less than a minute to play, but Eastview held on for the 68-63 victory.

Even when things were going Eastview’s way, Kasper was perplexed at how to stop Bueckers. At one point, Kasper tasked her players with taking away Bueckers’ right side and outside shot and pulling up on all edges. Bueckers responded by driving to the left and knocking down a left-handed runner with two people in her face.

“I remember being so defeated,” Kasper said. “Your heart just is like, ‘OK, I don’t know what else we can do in that moment.’”

Bueckers finished with 37 points, and it was the last loss she would ever have in a Hopkins uniform.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Kasper said. “There’s that mutual respect but also a competitive edge, and (beating Hopkins) is something we can luckily say that we did.”

When Stillwater faced Hopkins earlier in Bueckers’ junior season, coach Willie Taylor focused on Hopkins’ entire team. Bueckers controlled the game in the Hopkins victory with a game-high 24 points and seven rebounds. Doing more scouting on Bueckers afterward, Taylor saw someone who could do practically whatever she wanted on the court, scoring 30 to 40 points in other games.

So, when Stillwater was set to face Hopkins again in the state championship later that year, Taylor altered his approach: Stop Bueckers and don’t let her dominate the game. The strategy worked during the first half — Sillwater limited the junior to eight points on seven field-goal attempts and went into the break with a 29-27 lead. It was the only time that season Hopkins had trailed at halftime.

Taylor expected Hopkins to crack under the pressure, and maybe players would start bickering with each other the more they struggled. Instead, he watched Bueckers take on a different role as she facilitated the game through her teammates. She didn’t panic. One image that still stands out to him is that of Bueckers jumping up with her teammate to congratulate her after she hit multiple 3-pointers.

“That’s when my respect for her grew because she came out in that game and she led her team,” Taylor said. “To me, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s a special kid.’”

Bueckers finished with 13 points, seven assists, five rebounds and five steals in the 74-45 victory. It was Hopkins’ seventh state title since 2004 and the culmination of a 32-0 season.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Bueckers’ performance is that she had spent the morning before the game throwing up. She didn’t let the illness keep her off the floor.

“I didn’t care what was happening this morning, I was coming to play with my team,” Bueckers told the Star Tribune at the time. “Talk has been I came up short three years in a row. Is my legacy going to be, ‘I can get to the state title but I can’t win one?’”

Bueckers wowed Taylor again this past season in Hopkins’ win over Stillwater in the state semifinals. Watching film the next day, Taylor had “tears in his eyes” as he observed Bueckers make three similar defensive plays. In one, Bueckers was guarding a Stillwater opponent on the right side. She read the play designed to go to the left and stole the ball, resulting in points for Hopkins.

“(Paige) jumps the play like a defensive back,” Taylor said. “That’s not coaching. That’s just a kid that’s just got that desire, fire and actually the God-given tools to make plays like that.”

Once the stage was set for Farmington to face Hopkins in the state championship game in March, coach Liz Carpentier knew what to expect. By the time Bueckers reached her senior year, she had committed to UConn and she was being featured on ESPN, on the cover of SLAM and in her own SLAM docu-series. Her presence would draw crowds too big for most high school arenas, forcing some fans to be turned away at the door. Two coaches compared the atmosphere of a Hopkins game to that of the Chicago Bulls in 1998.

Carpentier said Farmington had a great game plan when it faced Hopkins in December, but it couldn’t sustain it the entire time, making too many mental mistakes. Hopkins would wear opponents down with extended ball pressure and an up-tempo style, which made game planning for them tough enough without worrying about one specific player.

For Carpentier, the goal in the title game was to stop other Hopkins playersand simply slow down Bueckers.

“She is the best high school basketball player I think that’s come out of Minnesota because all parts of her game are so smooth and developed,” Carpentier said. “The thing that sets her apart is really her competitiveness. Her game mentality is at the highest level.”

Carpentier never got a chance at the rematch. The championship game was canceled in March as COVID-19 spread through the country. Bueckers finished her time at Hopkins as its all-time leader with 2,877 points, 795 assists and 574 steals, and without one final show.

Bueckers, 18, is on to the next phase of her basketball career. She and her UConn teammates arrived in Storrs, Conn., in July to begin working out in small groups until COVID-19 protocols allow them to transition into full-team practices.

Being around her teammates and the UConn coaching staff for a few weeks, Bueckers feels she’s already grown as a player and student of the game. She’s talked with UConn greats like Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart about what to expect and isn’t shy about her goal to win four national championships at the collegiate level.

But in Minnesota, her legacy is already intact. When Carpentier’s sixth-grade daughter received the No. 1 jersey for her AAU team,the first thing she told her mom was, “I have Paige’s number.”

“She’s a Farmington Tiger at heart, but she really loves to see Paige play, and (she’s) someone she admires as well,” Carpentier said. “The things she’s done here in Minnesota are never going to be forgotten.

“You want daughters or young kids to have strong female role models and that’s what she is.”

At the next level, the pressure is greater, but the canvas is blank. For those lucky enough to have witnessed her rise in Minnesota, the potential is clear. They all can’t wait to see what she does next.

(Top photo: Courtesy of Crissha Walton)