WATCH: Paige Bueckers Returns to Scene of UConn Crime
Former UConn Huskies rival Arike Ogunbowale wasn't ready to turn the page with Paige in tow.
Ogunbowale, a Notre Dame alumna and a face of the Huskies' lasting rivalry with the Fighting Irish's women's basketball program, is now teammates with Paige Bueckers, the latest UConn alumna to hear her name at the top of the WNBA Draft. Now working with the Dallas Wings, Bueckers will make her unofficial professional debut on Friday in a preseason game against the Las Vegas Aces (7 p.m. ET, Ion).
Alas for Bueckers, Friday's exhibition will be held at Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center, the South Bend home of Notre Dame basketball. Ogunbowale was more than to rub in the Notre Dame pageantry to Bueckers in an exchange shared on her Instagram story (and captured by Sara Jane Gamelli of BallIsLife).
Welcome to the W!
— Sara Jane Gamelli (@SaraJGamelli) May 2, 2025
Arike Ogunbowale trolling Paige Bueckers on her IG story is top tier.
Arike hit the game winning buzzer over UConn in the 2018 Final Four although Bueckers wasn’t a Husky 😂
The Aces and Wings will play their first preseason game tonight at Notre Dame pic.twitter.com/vlJWNiI2RV
"Look at this beautiful place! Isn't this place beautiful?" Ogunbowale asks Bueckers, who smiles sheepishly and replies that "love(s) it here."
Ogunbowale immortalized herself as a UConn enemy in 2018 when she registered the game-winning basket of the teams' Final Four meeting in Columbus. As the video continues, a staffer recording the exchange happily presents Ogunbowale with a whiteboard asking viewers where they were when that shot was sunk.
"I was right there shooting that mug!" Ogunbowale says as Bueckers tries to escape. "Were you tearing?" Bueckers' responds "I want to!" and draws a laugh from here new teammate.
While Bueckers was not on that 2018 group, her Husky teams had a checkered history against the Fighting Irish: Notre Dame is one of the few teams to have the Huskies' numbers over the past four years, winning three of the four meetings during Bueckers' time in Storrs.
That includes a 79-68 win in South Bend last December, dealing UConn the first of three losses it would endure en route to its recording-extending 12th national championship. Alas for Bueckers, even the win in that span was bittersweet, as she endured a devastating knee injury that interrupted her sophomore season in 2021-22, though she would return in time for another national championship appearance.
Ogunbowale will do battle a former collegiate teammates in Friday's exhibition, as the Aces boast the services of fellow 2018 national champ and the following season's top WNBA draft pick Jackie Young. Las Vegas also acquired Irish great Jewell Loyd and continues to carry former UConn interior threat Kiah Stokes.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
