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UConn’s Paige Bueckers reacts against South Carolina during the NCAA Tournament championship game April 3 in Minneapolis.

UConn’s Paige Bueckers looks on during a practice session March 31 at Target Center in Minneapolis.

UConn star Paige Bueckers met with the media Thursday for the first time since suffering an ACL injury Aug. 1. The junior will miss the 2022-23 season due to the injury.

STORRS — Paige Bueckers stood in front of a crowd of 10-plus media members Thursday afternoon against the back wall of UConn women’s basketball practice gym in the Werth Champions Basketball Center. She wore a long white compression sleeve and a brace on her left knee.

In the same gym, a month ago to the day, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her knee during a pickup game. Her junior season ended the minute she felt the pop in her knee.

“I knew it was bad,” Bueckers said Thursday. “I felt a pop. I’m not really sure if I heard it, but I felt it for sure. I went to the training room and I was just really extremely frustrated. I didn’t know how serious it was, but I knew something was wrong.”

The star point guard will sit out the 2022-23 season recovering and filling an assistant coach-like role from the sideline while the Huskies attempt to return to the NCAA championship game for the second straight season. Bueckers will watch her teammates this year, but she confirmed she has no intention of leaving college early even though she is eligible for next year’s WNBA draft since she’ll turn 22 in 2023.

“I will be playing college basketball again,” she said.

A month after the injury and 27 days since surgery, Bueckers is off crutches and focused on keeping a positive mindset as she recovers.

“Last year I got hurt, but there was always a reassurance that I could return and I could be back in the same season, but this just really makes me never want to take things for granted again,” she said. “Live in the moment. Don’t think too far in the future because you never know what can happen. So just living every day to the best of my ability, just being thankful to God that I wake up every morning.

“There’s so many things in my life that I’m grateful for. I mean, I didn’t even have to pay for my surgery. I’m at my dream school with people I call family. To sorta sulk and be sad about this, there’s a lot more that could be wrong in life, so (I’m) just putting things into perspective and staying grateful.”

The minute Bueckers went down during the pickup game, she knew it was bad. So did her teammates Amari DeBerry, Caroline Ducharme and Aubrey Griffin, who were playing with her in the game. Bueckers immediately went to the trainer’s room to get evaluated.

DeBerry and Ducharme drove her to get an MRI the next day.

Bueckers says she texted all her teammates to inform them of the news once she got the results that night. Her ACL was torn, and she was out for the season.

The junior tore her ACL on the same knee she injured in December. In the final minute of UConn’s game against Notre Dame on Dec. 5, Bueckers suffered a tibial plateau fracture and a meniscus tear after sidestepping the wrong way. She missed more than two months, yet returned to the Huskies’ starting lineup Feb. 27 against Providence. Bueckers averaged 34.6 minutes and 15.1 points per game during the NCAA Tournament.

Bueckers says she was back to full strength and feeling great during the team’s summer workouts before getting injured. She stayed in Storrs all summer to focus on strengthening her knee and building muscle. She says the ACL injury and her knee injury from last season are “unrelated.”

That first week was the toughest, Bueckers said. She was in pain and trying hard not to dwell in the negativity.

It was when the news became public a few days later that she finally came to terms with her new reality.

“Up until I had surgery it was hard just because it wasn’t fixed yet and I still had the torn ACL,” she said. “But when they (UConn) posted it and texts came through, all the posts came through and I saw that, then it really became real life like everybody knows about it. It really happened and I had to own it. So I think that and having the surgery, just being able to have it fixed and get on the road to recovery was huge.”

Her teammates, especially DeBerry, Ducharme and Griffin, immediately showered her with support. Even former Huskies, including Breanna Stewart, reached out with encouraging messages. Griffin and Ducharme, along with Azzi Fudd and Dorka Juhasz, understand what Bueckers is going through since all four tore their ACLs in high school.

“They’re amazing. They’re my family,” Bueckers said of her teammates. “I know people say it a lot, that you build relationships through basketball, but these are people that I’m going to have in my life for the rest of my life. Especially Caroline and Aubrey, they stayed here with me this summer when they had the opportunities to go home and be with their families. They just knew how much I would be going through.

“When I just had surgery, I needed people around me to keep me positive and to support me so having them to stay here, Azzi came to visit, and just having them all back on campus right now is extremely important for me and my mental state. Just seeing them and being around them makes me a lot happier.”

Bueckers underwent surgery to repair her ACL on Aug. 5. She began her recovery the following day.

As with most ACL injury recovery plans, a patient usually begins walking again on their own power four to six weeks following surgery. Recent social media posts over the past couple of weeks show Bueckers walking without crutches, while wearing a knee brace and compression sleeve.

She said she’s been working on the stationary bike and will begin pool workouts soon. She also just got cleared to begin chair workouts on the court.

“I’ve been able to walk a lot more, which is really good for me,” Bueckers said. “ ... Just being able to do stuff on your own and not having to ask too much on other people was a really big step for me. … Anything I can do on the basketball court is extremely therapeutic for me, so I think all those are really big steps.”

When asked whether she’ll try to push herself to possibly return later this season, she said she’s already ruled herself out for the year to focus on recovery.

“I’m not gonna play this season, just because if I come back too soon then something else is gonna get injured,” she said. “I really just want to be 110 percent healthy before I ever play basketball again just because I never want to take a break like this again ever in my career.”

Bueckers said she wants to be a “player’s coach” on the sideline this season after joking that she was taking over for coach Geno Auriemma.

“I’m gonna be the one they can talk to, the one that’s gonna push them but also the one they can rely on when they need support and anything like that,” she said.

While Bueckers will be eligible to declare for the 2023 WNBA draft this spring as a junior, the Hopkins, Minnesota, native said that’s the last thing on her mind.

Since she is missing the season, Bueckers now has the option to utilize a medical redshirt and tack on another year of eligibility. She could choose to graduate with her class in 2024 or extend her stay in Storrs to the spring of 2025. Bueckers’ class is also the last class to have an additional extra year of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So if she wanted to, she could stay through the 2025-26 season.

Whichever year she chooses to end her collegiate career, Bueckers is predicted to be a first-overall draft pick.

“From the injury I really put things into perspective and just trying to take things day by day,” she said. “But I’m not leaving. That is not in question, but people ask me, ‘What are you thinking about? Fifth year? COVID year? Redshirtting this year?’ I’m not thinking too far ahead about that all, but I will be playing college basketball again.”

Maggie is a general assignment sports reporter for Hearst CT Media who focuses on highlighting the humanity within athletics with every feature. She comes to Connecticut after growing up and working all along the West Coast, including stops at The Seattle Times and The Orange County Register. Outside of writing, she enjoys spontaneous adventures, reading, hiking and visiting her family back home in Portland, Oregon.