But in Episode 3, the two offered a rare look into their bond.
“I think it’s really important to have somebody to confide in that is understanding of what you’re going through,” Bueckers said about Fudd. “It kind of just meshed as soon as we met. She’s sweet. She’s genuine. She has a huge, caring heart. We kind of felt a spark a little bit different that what would just be considered a normal friendship.”
Added Fudd, “Paige and I are a couple, and everyone closest to us that was important knew but it was kind of one of those things that was just private. It’s not a secret, but it’s private.”
Bueckers details conflict with Auriemma
When Bueckers decided to return for her fifth and final season, the expectations were sky high. The program hadn’t won a national championship in nine years up to that point, and Auriemma was growing increasingly hungrier for another title.Auriemma said he wanted to see more from Bueckers, expecting his star player to lead with a personality that mirrored that of the UConn stars before such as Diana Taurasi.
Bueckers laid-back leadership style came to a head with Auriemma midway through the 2025 season.
“With me and coach, there were probably a couple of weeks of us not talking to each other and just showing up to practice and existing,” Bueckers said.
And her teammates started to take notice, too.
“When things weren’t going right, it was usually Paige’s fault,” Fudd said. “She had said to me, ‘I came back for my fifth year because I thought we were gonna have things figured out and it was going to be fun.’ She basically said, ‘It’s the exact opposite of that.”
The two eventually figured it all out with Bueckers taking on more of a more vocal leadership role as the season progressed.
More: Pat vs. Geno Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, UConn had one rival: Tennessee.
As Auriemma got into coaching, the gold standard for women’s basketball was the Vols led by the late great Pat Summitt. Summit that already built a legacy when Auriemma arrived in Storrs.
As the two coaches battled throughout the years, Auriemma detailed that Summit was the one who drove him to be great.
But sometimes, winning wasn’t enough.
“For Geno, he could win. But I think he wanted to be loved and respected and admired the way Pat Summitt was,” sportswriter Jackie MacMullan said in Episode 2. “That just still hasn’t happened. But that was something Geno brought upon himself because of his persona, because of the things he said.
“He didn’t understand it was much bigger than just winning championships. That simplifies what Pat Summitt accomplished. She wanted to grow the women’s game, one little girl at a time.”
Auriemma rejected the notion that he had to care about the future of women’s basketball.
“I didn’t give a (expletive) about the game growing,” Auriemma said. “I was growing our game here at UConn.”
After Summitt died in 2016, Auriemma said he realized that they had a lot more in common than he realized.
“When this happened with Pat, it’s a contemporary of yours and it really hits home,” Auriemma said. “We were different people. We grew up differently, maybe viewed the world differently. But at the same time, as competitors, we were the same in a lot of ways.”
Retirement on the horizon for Auriemma?
When Auriemma won the 2025 national championship, he became the oldest coach to win the crown in the sport’s history. In March, Auriemma turned 72, making him the oldest active coach at the Division I level.In Episode 3, Auriemma talked extensively about his age and how much longer he feels he can continue coaching. After winning the title in 2025, Auriemma said it would have been smart to retire on the spot.
But to this point, Auriemma concluded that he still feels motivated to keep coaching.
“At my age, I did start to think, ‘I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,’” Auriemma said. “But when you’ve done something for 40, 50 years, you’re supposed to have this big feeling of accomplishment. You’re not supposed to have this burning feeling that I need to keep going. But I do.”
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