While the relationship between Paige Bueckers and Geno Auriemma is one of the most celebrated in college basketball, there was a time when the duo could barely get on the same page. And their championship-winning final season together at UConn was marked by such exchanges. However, with Bueckers now in the WNBA, her relationship with Auriemma has taken a more heartwarming turn, and Auriemma’s latest revelation, involving a rather telling text message from his former star, says everything about how far the two have come.

On Thursday evening during UConn’s win over Ohio State, Auriemma reflected on his relationship with the former Huskies star in a halftime segment on FS1 alongside longtime broadcaster Bill Raftery.

“Paige and I had our differences and our great moments and our battles… But at the end, I knew what she wanted, and I wanted to help her get it. And when I helped her get it, her reaction said it all. Just yesterday, I got a text from her. She said, ‘I miss you.’ She misses me everyday, except I miss her more,” Auriemma said, per UConn WBB Weekly’s Daniel Connolly.

The Huskies have had their fair share of exceptional talent, from Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi to Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart. But in the modern era, it’s safe to say nobody has yet touched the impact Bueckers had in Storrs. She arrived as the No. 1 recruit in the 2020 class, above the likes of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink. And it took her little time to show why that was the case.

Bueckers immediately delivered, averaging 20 points and almost six assists per game in her debut season to make history by becoming the first-ever freshman to win the Naismith College Player of the Year.

Unfortunately, her path was interrupted by injuries. She appeared in only 17 games during her sophomore season and then missed the entire 2022-23 campaign after tearing her ACL. Bueckers returned the next season, helping UConn reach the Final Four, but the Huskies fell to Caitlin Clark and Iowa. Rather than enter the 2024 WNBA Draft, she chose to return for one final season with the program to finally clinch what she had chased throughout her college career.

In the 2024-25 season, Bueckers had a few “tough love” moments with Auriemma. Following a loss to Tennessee, Auriemma heavily criticized Bueckers during a team film session. He publicly and privately questioned her leadership status and asked difficult questions, such as why her teammates would look up to her. The brutal criticism led to a stretch where Bueckers and Auriemma did not speak to each other for a couple of weeks.

After losing three games between December and February, UConn’s season took a bright turn. They rediscovered their form and beat Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks 87-58 in Columbia. The Huskies took that momentum right through the NCAA tournament, beating the Gamecocks 82-59 in the final to win the program’s first national championship in nine years. Bueckers finished her final collegiate season with 19.9 points, and one of the defining images from the championship game came when she and Auriemma shared an emotional embrace.

“That was just everything we had been through at that point, just the emotions of it and everything coming together… The times when we hated each other, where we loved each other. Everything me and coach had been through was embodied in that hug,” Bueckers said in the Apple documentary The Dynasty: UConn Huskies.

After entering the WNBA as the No. 1 overall pick and earning 2025 Rookie of the Year honors, Bueckers is one of the league’s biggest stars. Now, her connection with Auriemma is shaped more by shared memories than by the pressure of preparing for another college basketball game, and her brief but affectionate text to Auriemma perfectly sums up five years of their mentor-mentee relationship.