Paige Bueckers ready to enter the WNBA projectors

“I’m a big fan,” said necklace. “She is a great basketball player, but she is a great person. I love him, I like her family. Just good people. “

For all skills, this is what distinguishes Bueckers. Good friends, Reeve and coach Uconn Geno Auriemma often talked about the similarities of coaching necklace and Bueckers. Both relate to the team, sometimes at fault. Just as Reeve had to urge the necklace to be essentially more selfish, Auriemma had sometimes pushed this direction Bueckers.

Whalen, the leader of four WNBA champions and two teams who won Olympic gold, sees some similarities between her and Bueckers. But Bueckers, Whalen said, is longer, larger, capable of going to different places. She is a better dash, said Whalen.

“It is balanced,” said Whalen. “She plays with great intentionality. For me, it’s great strength.”

The balance does not only occur. Whalen remembers heard of this Hopkins kid on the stage, while she and her Lynx teammates were in the middle of their championship. I watched her on television in some state tournaments. Once she obtained the work of coach of the Gophers in 2018, she spent hours watching Bueckers play.

One day in Whalen’s office at U, Whalen made his ground, knowing that wading Bueckers far from Huskies was a great deadline. I wore the torch to Minnesota for a while, Whalen said. Now you.