STORRS, Conn. — Chris Hyppa only had three days in July to work with UConn superstar guard Paige Bueckers during her brief stop at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, so the skills development coach reached out to Bueckers a few days in advance to find out what she wanted to prioritize during their time together. Bueckers quickly texted back a list: Transition game, ball handling and shooting off the bounce.
But when Hyppa turned on the tape from the Huskies’ 2023-24 season, he found himself stumped. “This is how special she is: I go to watch all of her transition stuff from the year before thinking that I’m going to see semifastbreaks, pull-up threes, stuff like that. Almost every damn clip that I watched was her getting in a passing lane and getting a fast break steal,” Hyppa said.
“We kind of joked about that, because then when I came to the workout I was like look, I was trying to find flaws in what you did transition-wise, and all I saw was passing lane after passing lane, steal after steal. It gave me goose bumps because I’m a huge defensive guy.” Hyppa jumped at the opportunity to train the UConn guard this summer, eight years after they first met.
He was helping run an “Elite Is Earned” camp in Minneapolis when he was introduced to the then-eighth grade prodigy, and he remembers immediately feeling the star power that exuded from her even at 13 years old. Now entering her fifth and final season with the Huskies, Hyppa sees Bueckers’ spa.