Paige Bueckers, UConn's visit to Butler helps make college history with sold-out arena

UConn star Paige Bueckers was in scintillating form as the Huskies heavily trounced the Butler Bulldogs 86–47 to record a fifth straight win. Bueckers overcame her knee injury scare from the game against the Seton Hall Pirates during mid-week to average 23.0 points, 2.0 rebounds and 10.0 assists per game.

As fans thronged to Hinkle Fieldhouse to watch the popular Bueckers, the home court was sold out, making history. Fans lined up for hours to await the UConn team bus and thronged the corridors even after the game to catch a glimpse of the UConn star.

Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma bid farewell to SNY

The New York-based SNY network became the UCon Huskies' official partner in 2012 after years of working with CPTV. The network witnessed the height of legendary coach Geno Auriemma's tenure as his teams won four consecutive national championships.

From next season, Huskies games will be televised on Fox Sports, TNT Sports and NBC Sports as part of the Big East's new media rights deal. During her postgame news conference, Paige Bueckers paid homage to the network, which has been around since her debut season in 2021.

"Thank you to SNY," Bueckers said. "The people who work the cameras, everybody who's dedicated a lot of time, energy, effort to cover us and make us have this stage, this platform so people can watch us back home, wherever it is.

We're extremely grateful and we never want to take it for granted, all the hard work that you guys do. It's been amazing. Five years for me but a lot longer time for everybody that's been working But we appreciate it. The hard work doesn't go unnoticed."

During his postgame news conference, Auriemma also weighed in on the network's long affiliation with the Huskies.

"It's kind of bittersweet ... this being the last game that SNY is going to do," Auriemma said. "You know, we're all going to miss all the people at SNY the ones that are here on the camera and the ones that are back in the studio, and all the cameramen, all the technicians, everyone.

It's been a relationship that was way above what our expectations were, and our expectations were pretty high, and it was even more than that. So I've been proud to be a part of it."

Bueckers and the UConn Huskies will play against the No. 23 Creighton Bluejays on Thursday as the regular season and the SNY era end.