{"id":812514,"date":"2026-08-15T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/812514\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T16:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:30:20","slug":"bueckers-struggles-during-title-season-highlighted-in-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/812514\/","title":{"rendered":"Bueckers’ struggles during title season highlighted in documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn women\u2019s basketball<\/a> coach Geno Auriemma was asked on Wednesday what he thought of \u201cThe Dynasty: UConn Huskies<\/a>,\u201d an Apple TV documentary which chronicles his 40 years of coaching at UConn, culminating with the 2025 national championship. The three-part series will premier Aug. 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was somewhat authentic, somewhat educational \u2026 somewhat cringeworthy \u2026 it ran the gamut,\u201d Auriemma said via a Zoom press availability. \u201cThere was something there for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

More seriously, he added, \u201cI hope that it was something people look at and say, \u2018Wow, I didn\u2019t know this is how hard they work, I didn\u2019t know these are the pressures these kids are under \u2026\u2019 As I look back, I think to myself, \u2018Um, you know, coaching 30 years ago and coaching today sure has changed.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that I\u2019d want to go back, but there are some things I miss about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was pointed out that\u2019s exactly what UConn star Breanna Stewart said in the documentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Auriemma said wryly. \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary, directed by Erica Sashin and Matthew Hamachek, starts with Auriemma\u2019s arrival at the school in 1985, moves on to UConn\u2019s first national championship in 1995 and the subsequent 11 national tiles and features interviews with former players Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Shea Ralph and Paige Bueckers, among others. Jim Calhoun makes an appearance, talking about the rift between the two coaches. There is a lot on the Tennessee-UConn series, and the clashes between Pat Summitt and Auriemma between 1995-2007 when the two teams played.<\/p>\n

Bueckers\u2019 interviews are particularly searing: she talks about how the pressure became too much her senior year and reached its peak after UConn lost to Tennessee in 2025 and what Auriemma put her through to en route to the program\u2019s 12th (and her first) national title.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had been through a lot, physically and mentally, emotionally,\u201d Auriemma said Wednesday. \u201cWe played Tennessee two times in a row \u2013 at Tennessee, the year before, and at Tennessee her senior year, only because she said I never played here when the place was full, when there was a big crowd, so we rearranged the schedule so we could go there her senior year and then we go down there and it\u2019s awful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably when the whole five years came crashing down and had its full effect \u2013 helped by me, throwing more coal on the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she had to learn she needed to be more, if she wanted to win a national championship, and she was. She was everything we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UConnUConn head coach Geno Auriemma and guard Paige Bueckers talk during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Minnesota, Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo\/Abbie Parr)<\/p>\n

When Sashin \u2013 who grew up in Connecticut but said she didn\u2019t know much about the Huskies \u2013 and Hamachek started interviewing players during the 2024-25 season, they were struck by what Bueckers was going through, returning from devastating injuries to herself and her teammates and trying to win a title after a nine-year drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to people who covered the team, every game, and knew a lot about what was going on but really had no idea it had gotten that bad for Paige,\u201d Hamachek said. \u201cThere\u2019s the process of filming her going through the final season, the pressure that was on her, the pressure that was on the team to end the drought \u2013 but then getting to sit across from her and talk to her about that \u2013 and for her to talk about that, the panic attacks she would have at night after the injuries she sustained but also what Geno basically has to do to her to get her to overcome what she\u2019s been going through, how much that wounded her but also was a major factor in what turned the season around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think from afar \u2013 having been there while that was taking place \u2013 this happens with teams at times, where you\u2019re wondering, \u2018What switched all of a sudden to put you guys on a completely different trajectory?\u2019 \u2013 so it was the process of discovering that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he asked Bueckers at the end of the interviews why she was so raw and honest about her emotions at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked, \u2018Why did you tell us all this?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cShe said, \u2018I don\u2019t want the kids who were looking up to me to think it\u2019s easy to just go out there and win a championship and hoist a trophy and have confetti fall on you \u2013 this is incredibly hard.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"UConnUConn guard Paige Bueckers holds up a piece of the net after the Huskies defeated South Carolina inthe national championship game at the Final Four of the women’s NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo\/John Raoux)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in a lot of ways, that\u2019s the story of UConn, right? Geno\u2019s tough. It\u2019s not an easy place to go to. But he finds incredible ways to extract greatness out of these people and help them overcome the one thing that they need to overcome to accomplish their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over and over again, that story is told. Things are hard. Players want to quit but they don\u2019t. Auriemma is tough to play for. This is how it is here. This is how UConn wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things for me that surprised me was that Geno had created a culture \u2013 if you talked to a player there in the 90s vs. 2025, there is a such a continuum there, you hear so many similar experiences,\u201d Sashin said. \u201cBut the 2025 players have inherited an expectation of winning. The crown is very heavy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Geno created was not just a team and a dynasty but also a culture that these players really seem to love and love being a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary ends with UConn winning the 2025 national championship.<\/p>\n

That, Auriemma said, was his favorite part.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe end. When it was over,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cWe won. My favorite part was, I think, the run through the NCAA Tournament, looking back on that and how it just kept picking up steam as we kept going and going. To revisit that a little bit was good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn women\u2019s basketball coach Geno Auriemma was asked on Wednesday what he thought of \u201cThe Dynasty: UConn Huskies,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[25292,7,217,926,925,6491,6108,2680,2341,2679,68003,231,772,1544,6113,66,97465,97463,6107,97464],"class_list":["post-812514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-apple-tv","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-documentary","tag-geno-auriemma","tag-hartford-courant","tag-huskies","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-sports","tag-the-dynasty-uconn-huskies","tag-uconn-documentary","tag-uconn-womens-basketball","tag-uconn-womens-basketball-documentary"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117100480399045690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}