How Paige Bueckers’ injury impacts the UConn Huskies and the 2022-23 women’s college basketball season

UConn Huskies star guard Paige Bueckers has suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, which will sideline her for the 2022-23 women’s college basketball season and cause a ripple effect throughout the sport.

One of the marquee players in the game, Bueckers was the No. 1 overall recruit in the Class of 2020 and has helped UConn reach the women’s Final Four in each of the past two seasons. The Huskies fell in the championship game to the South Carolina Gamecocks in April in Bueckers’ home state of Minnesota.

The 5-foot-11 Bueckers, who turns 21 in October, had a phenomenal freshman season for the Huskies and was the 2020-21 consensus national player of the year. She had surgery on her right ankle after that season, but returned ready to go for 2021-22. However, Bueckers was injured near the end of UConn’s victory over Notre Dame on Dec. 5, suffering an anterior tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscus tear, also in the left knee. She missed 19 games, then came back in late February.

Bueckers averaged 20.0 points and 4.9 assists as a freshman and 14.6 and 4.0 as a sophomore. We look at how Bueckers’ injury will impact the Huskies and the national championship race this upcoming season.

How does Bueckers’ injury impact UConn for the 2022-23 season and what adjustments will the Huskies make without her in the lineup?

A team that was one win away from taking home the national championship four months ago no doubt faces way more of an uphill battle as it seeks to…