Geno Auriemma Explains Why Caitlin Clark Didn't End Up At UConn And How Paige Bueckers Played A Role

Coming out of Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, Caitlin Clark wanted to play for Geno Auriemma at UConn, and understandably so. The Huskies had 11 national titles under their belt in the span of just 21 years and have been the premier program in women's hoops for Clark's entire life. 

According to Clark, Auriemma tried to lure her to Connecticut, but maybe not hard enough.

"I loved UConn. I think they’re the coolest place on Earth, and I wanted to say I got recruited by them. They called my AAU coach a few times, but they never talked to my family and never talked to me." Clark told Wright Thompson of ESPN in a recent profile.

 (Credit: Getty Images)

Clark was ranked as the No. 4 player in the 2020 high school class as well, and certainly on Auriemma's radar, so what gives, why didn't Clark take her talents to Storrs? 

Well, there just so happened to be a young lady named Paige Bueckers who was the unanimous No. 1 player in the same 2020 class. Bueckers plays point guard like Clark, so when she committed to the Huskies, that spot on the roster was filled. Bueckers committed in April 2019 while Clark didn't announce her commitment to Iowa until November of that year.

Auriemma also claimed that Clark didn't make it abundantly clear she wanted to commit to UConn.

"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," Auriemma said, according to CT Insider. "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.

"Caitlin is obviously a tremendous player, a generational player. But if Caitlin really wanted to come to UConn she would have called me and said, ‘Coach I really want to come to UConn.’ Neither of us lost out. She made the best decision for her and it’s worked out great. We made the decision we thought we needed to make."

While it's easy to say that Auriemma made the wrong decision in prioritizing Bueckers over Clark given the Iowa star is now the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I history, the fall-off between the two isn't exactly gargantuan. One can easily make the argument that Bueckers is the second best player in women's hoops, and has occupied that role as long as she's been healthy throughout her career.