After a journey filled with highs, heartbreaks, and healing, UConn star Paige Bueckers is finally a national champion — and she’s giving all the glory to God.
The All-American guard led the Connecticut Huskies to an 82–59 victory over South Carolina on Sunday, securing the school’s first women’s basketball championship since 2016. Bueckers contributed 17 points in the dominant win, capping off a season that was as much about faith as it was about basketball.
“If I could say one thing, it would be to stand firm in who you are,” Bueckers said in a postgame interview with ESPN. “There’s a lot of people who write you off. There’s a lot of narratives that try to put you in a box. [They] tell you [that] you got to do this, you got to do that, you got to be more like this player, you got to be more like that player. Stand firm in who you are.”
But Bueckers made it clear she doesn’t stand on her own strength — she leans on God’s.
“There’s people that doubt you because they think you’re doing it on your strength alone,” she said. “We lean on God’s strength here, and through God’s power for God’s purposes — we’re not doing this alone.”
“We lean on God’s strength here.”
Great stuff from Paige Bueckers after helping UConn win the women’s college basketball national title pic.twitter.com/IkiZHklJNy
— Sports Spectrum (@Sports_Spectrum) April 6, 2025
It’s a message that resonates deeply with anyone who’s faced setbacks and wondered if they would ever see the promises of God fulfilled.
Bueckers’ road to the championship wasn’t easy. She had helped guide UConn to the Final Four in 2021, 2022, and 2024 but had not captured a title until now. Worse, she missed the entire 2022-23 season after suffering a devastating knee injury during a pickup game — a moment that could have shattered her spirit.
Instead, it strengthened her faith.
At the time, Bueckers took to Instagram to share her perspective: “It’s hard trying to make sense of it all now, but I can’t help but think that God is using me as a testimony as to how much you can overcome with Him by your side.”
Through it all, Bueckers stayed grounded in her walk with Christ, even listing Proverbs 3:5-6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” — in her social media bio, that foundation of faith gave her peace, even when the future seemed uncertain.
On Sunday, as she celebrated her first national title under legendary coach Geno Auriemma, Bueckers once again pointed back to her ultimate source of strength.
“The way we prepare in the weight room, the way we prepare — how we eat, how we sleep — you’re just leaning on that,” she explained. “And I have faith in God, that I believe everything happens for a reason, and everything is in His hands already. So just leaning on that, leaning on His strength, leaning on His comfort, and leaning on the preparation.”
Bueckers’ 19.9 career points per game are the highest in UConn history, and she now holds the third most career points in NCAA women’s tournament history. Yet her biggest accomplishment may not be the statistics she leaves behind but the example she sets for trusting God through every season — success, suffering, and ultimate triumph.
In a world where athletes are often praised for their self-made journeys, Paige Bueckers is reminding everyone that true strength comes not from within, but from above.