The college basketball world has spent years wondering what it might’ve looked like had Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark shared the backcourt at UConn. But according to Geno Auriemma, the superstar pairing would’ve never worked.
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Auriemma spoke about the hypothetical in a sit-down interview with USA Today Sports, a clip of which was posted to Instagram on August 14. There, the host asked him about potentially bringing in both Clark and Bueckers in the same recruiting class and Clark’s disappointment in not being recruited by UConn, and his verdict was clear.
“When I saw Paige play, the commitment to Paige was very early,” he said. “And if I didn’t think we could get Paige, who knows what would have happened? Who knows who we may have recruited, who we may have gotten. But I knew we were going to get Paige. I also knew that that’s not going to work, the two of them together for four years in college. No disrespect to anybody. We got what we wanted. We got what we needed. And the rest is history.”
Geno Auriemma committed to Bueckers, but it wasn’t because Clark was not talented. Both players were top recruits in the high school class of 2020, with Clark ranking #4 and Bueckers leading the country. However, he also knew that if he brought both players in, it would crowd the backcourt with two ball-dominant players. He has previously explained the decision differently back on April 2, 2024, when the Huskies played Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes.
“Well, there’s a lot of kids we didn’t recruit, and there’s a lot of kids who don’t want to go to UConn,” he told reporters ahead of the game. “I committed to Paige Bueckers very, very early, and it would have been silly for me to say to Paige, ‘Hey listen, we’re going to put you in the backcourt, and then I’m going to try really hard to recruit Caitlin Clark.’ I don’t do it that way.”
However, it is also well known that Clark’s not being recruited by UConn disappointed her. In an ESPN profile on March 20, 2024, Clark explained that Iowa wasn’t her first choice. She wanted to go to UConn, but Auriemma never ended up recruiting her, despite speaking to her AAU coach. That shifted her attention to her next choice: Iowa or Notre Dame.
Back to the present day, Geno Auriemma explained that while he understood Clark’s disappointment at not being recruited, she could’ve spoken to him about it any time she wanted to.
“My thing is you should have picked up the phone and called me and said, ‘Coach, I want to come to Connecticut.’ I don’t think that was ever the case, to be honest with you,” he told the interviewer. “Everybody wants to be recruited by Connecticut. Like, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t be able to sit there and go, ‘Hey, Mom, guess what? I just got offered a scholarship from UConn.'”
Regardless, considering Paige Bueckers‘ national championship at UConn despite multiple injury setbacks, Geno Auriemma’s decision produced the outcome he wanted.