Storrs — Paige Bueckers doesn’t sugar coat things.

“Every game sucked last year watching on the side,” said Bueckers, the 2021 national player of the year as a freshman for the UConn women’s basketball team who missed all of last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

“But there’s nothing like not playing in March and that feeling. I just remember last year, it was our second game (in the NCAA tournament), I think, against Baylor. After that game I was super emotional just because of the environment of March Madness and not playing in that situation. It’s what you really work for your entire life.”

By contrast, March 2024 has carried a dizzying array of accolades for Bueckers — she’s finally an All-American again — and acclaim from teammates, coaches and opponents.

In leading UConn to the Big East tournament championship March 9-11 at Mohegan Sun Arena, Bueckers scored 83 points in three games to earn Most Outstanding Player honors and she did so with uninhibited joy.

Bueckers, the 6-foot guard and a redshirt junior from Hopkins, Minnesota, took the opening tip in the Big East tournament semifinals against Marquette in place of injured teammate Aaliyah Edwards. In that game, she also splashed an NBA-range 3-point field goal to end the third quarter of the eventual victory before sprinting around the court in celebration, gleefully chest-bumping various teammates.

Bueckers’ next assignment begins at 1 p.m. Saturday at sold-out Gampel Pavilion, with third-seeded UConn (29-5) meeting No. 14 Jackson State (26-6) in the first round of the NCAA tournament’s Portland (Oregon) Regional 3.

“Before the tournament started, I was telling myself to embrace it, to have fun, to play with joy,” Bueckers said of the Big East tournament success. “Because last year I would have done anything to be able to play in the month of March during tournament time. So really it’s just me getting back to my roots of just having fun playing the game of basketball.”

“I’m sure we all missed that and I’m sure the fans missed that and I’m sure she missed it, first and foremost,” UConn senior Nika Muhl said. “It’s been incredible to be a part of her journey off the court, when she was injured and what she has developed in her character and how she’s grown so much. To be able to just flip it and use it for this season has been incredible.”

Bueckers, who will play in her first NCAA tournament game in 720 days, is averaging a career-best 21.3 points per game, with 4.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.4 blocks. She named Big East Player of the Year and the league’s top scholar-athlete.

Bueckers led UConn to Final Four appearances in 2021 and 2022 and to the 2022 national championship game in her home state of Minnesota.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma, often asked about the Who’s Who of UConn greats who have led the Huskies to 11 national championships during his 39-year tenure, likes to mess with Bueckers by telling her she couldn’t even make the first team.

He also tells her she can’t drive to her left and she can’t beat anybody off the dribble, anything that provokes her to prove him wrong.

“You haven’t won a national championship, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I try to say as many things as I can to her because she just loves proving people wrong,” Auriemma said.

“I go by this criteria. How many players have I coached that impact the team in as many ways as Paige does? And how many teams rely so much — how many of my teams — on one player to do so much for them? I would say that that list probably starts with Diana Taurasi and Paige Bueckers. And no disrespect to any of those others.

“So whether she's a legend or a national champion yet, very, very few have impacted UConn basketball the way Paige has.”

And yet Auriemma has a humorous depiction of his superstar, too.

She talks. A lot, he said. Not in a bad way, by any means, just matter of factly: This is what I’m going to do.

“It's just nonstop, (so) that when she does it, it's almost like, ‘I told you I was going to do it,’” Auriemma said. “It's fun to be around that. But at the same time we're all rooting for her not to get it done so we can make fun of her.

“There is nothing, literally nothing, that she thinks that if she sets her mind to it that she can't do.”

Now, Bueckers takes the national stage for the NCAA tournament, something she has daydreamed about since Stefanie Dolson, Bueckers’ favorite UConn player growing up, won back-to-back national championships in 2013 and 2014.

Bueckers carries the burden of a star, Auriemma said, having to be more prepared, more ready to take the hits that come her way without complaining.

And yet it’s no burden to Bueckers, who sells out Gampel Pavilion in her adopted home town of Storrs and who laughs and cries along with her teammates on a regular basis. She inspires an injury-plagued team, four players competing in the postseason for the first time, to be able to conquer any hurdle.

“Other than everything?” Syracuse coach Felisha Legette-Jack said early Friday afternoon from Gampel Pavilion, asked what makes Bueckers special. “... I don’t know why her name isn’t being as visible as other names that are being talked about throughout the season.

“I just think that you don't see her greatness as much as you see the others because she plays within an amazing system with a great coach. ... She does a great job of sharing that ball, sharing that light, and then every now and again she gets Big East Player of the Year.”

“She’s built for this month,” UConn’s Edwards said of Bueckers. “And she's built for this team.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

No. 3 UConn vs. No. 14 Jackson State

Location: Gampel Pavilion

Tip: 1:06 p.m. (Ch. 8)

Records: Jackson State 26-6, UConn 29-5.

Last game: Jackson State beat Alcorn State in the SWAC tournament championship game, 68-44, March 16; UConn beat Georgetown in the Big East tournament championship game, 78-42, March 11.

Probable starters: Jackson State, 6-1 G Ti’lan Boler (11.7 ppg), 6-1 G Miya Crump (11.6 ppg, 6.4 rpg), 6-6 P Angel Jackson (9.9 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 3.0 bpg), 5-8 G Keshuna Luckett (6.8 ppg, 3.7 apg), 5-10 G Zakiya Mahoney (5.2 ppg, 4.0 rpg).

UConn, 6-3 F Aaliyah Edwards (17.8 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 2.1 apg), 5-9 G KK Arnold (9.0 ppg, 3.2 apg, 2.3 spg), 6-0 G Paige Bueckers (21.3 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 3.7 apg, 2.1 spg), 5-11 G Nika Muhl (7.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 6.4 apg, 1.1 spg), 5-10 G Ashlynn Shade (11.0 ppg, 1.5 apg).

Noteworthy: UConn coach Geno Auriemma said that some people subscribe to the notion of ... it doesn’t matter what seed you are; just be happy you’re in the NCAA tournament. “This is the reason you want to be a No. 1 seed,” Auriemma was saying Friday afternoon. “So you don’t get this matchup in the first round. ... You’re trying to avoid this game in the first round because they’re good.” Jackson State, under head coach Tomekia Reed, is making its third NCAA tournament appearance in six seasons after defeating Alcorn State 68-44 for the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament championship. Andriana Avent scored 17 points to be named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player for the Tigers. Six-foot-six Angel Jackson (six blocked shots during the tournament championship game) was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year during the regular season and Ti’lan Boler and Miya Crump were first team All-SWAC all-stars. Jackson State’s losses were all out of conference, including five straight against the likes of No. 15 Kansas State, No. 12 Oregon State, Mississippi State, Miami and No. 4 Texas. Auriemma calls this matchup “complicated.” “So you’re going to run into situations where you’re going to have to deal with something that’s not your strength and obviously size is not our strength. So that does pose a problem immediately. There are things you’re going to come across. Their depth. They rebound the ball hard. They get out in transition. They just ... they’re undefeated in their league for a reason. This is complicated (Saturday), this is complicated.” ... UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards, who missed the Big East tournament semifinals and championship game with a broken nose, will return to the court with a facemask. Still, the Huskies have just eight healthy players, with six sidelined for the season with injuries. Jackson State used 13 players in the SWAC tournament final, nine for 13 minutes or more. ... Gampel Pavilion is sold out, the first time a first-round NCAA tournament game in Storrs has been sold out since 2002. ... The Huskies have won 29 straight first-round NCAA tournament games. ... In Reed’s tenure at Jackson State, Ameshya Williams-Holliday became the first Tigers player to be selected in the WNBA Draft in 2022, chosen as the 25th overall pick by the Indiana Fever. Williams-Hollliday was the first player chosen from an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) in 20 years and became only the sixth player drafted from an HBCU.

— Vickie Fulkerson