In the final moments of UConn’s 2025 national championship victory over South Carolina, Paige Bueckers walked off the court for the last time as a member of the Huskies and embraced Geno Auriemma. Emotion poured out from both sides as the weight of the moment set in. After five years filled with injury and adversity, Bueckers finally captured her long-awaited national title.
As it turned out, far more was behind that hug than we ever knew. “The Dynasty: UConn Huskies”, an upcoming Apple TV documentary
set to premiere on Friday, Aug. 21, sheds light on the at-times contentious relationship between Bueckers and Auriemma during UConn’s championship season. The third episode of the three-part series focuses on the Huskies’ most recent title run, featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and stories.
Bueckers, Azzi Fudd explains in the episode, expected her final year in Storrs to be fun and easy. It proved to be anything but. Auriemma pushed the superstar to her limit — and maybe even beyond — as he tried to get the best out of her. The series reveals that the two stopped speaking during the 2024-25 campaign and delves into the moment that nearly fractured their relationship.
After UConn’s loss to Tennessee in February — “the hardest loss, I think, in quite some time,” according to the coach — Auriemma put the defeat solely on Bueckers. He believed the loss didn’t hurt her as much as it should’ve, so he set out to change that.
“I took a risk and I said, ‘She’s either going to quit or she’s going to change,‘” Auriemma explains. “So I tried to hurt her like losing hurts.”
During the film session the next day, he tore into Bueckers. Auriemma didn’t just criticize her play; he also attacked her as a person, questioning why her teammates should look up to her or follow her.
“It was awkward to be in there,” Sarah Strong says. “I wasn’t expecting him to attack Paige like that. He was just yelling at her and, I don’t know, saying really hurtful things to her. It was really shocking to me.”
“I just questioned, did I even want to be there anymore?” Bueckers admits.
Although she struggled to make sense of Auriemma’s blistering attack at first, Bueckers came to realize she needed to change. During a players-only meeting, she told her teammates she would be better, but also let them know she’d be challenging them more as well.
The move ultimately worked. Bueckers eventually put it all together and led UConn to its 12th national championship despite feeling immense pressure entering that final game. The fairytale ending to her career caps off the series.
The Dynasty, a Sundance Sports production directed by Matthew Hamachek and Erica Sashin, features three episodes that last roughly 40 minutes apiece. It’s a gripping watch, though not without its faults.
The first episode focuses on Auriemma’s origins — including some incredible photographs of him in his youth — as well as Rebecca Lobo’s own struggle on the way to UConn’s first championship in 1995. Episode two homes in on the rivalry with Tennessee as well as the Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi eras. The final chapter centers on the Huskies’ nine-year championship drought and the 2025 national title that finally ended it.
There’s incredible footage of the Huskies’ 1995 team partying in their dorms, fascinating revelations about the strife tension within the locker room during the 1998-99 campaign and plenty of never-before-seen material from UConn’s most recent championship run. Auriemma’s meltdown at halftime in the locker room of the title game against South Carolina is particularly entertaining, especially knowing the Huskies would go on to win in blowout fashion.
“How do you go from Friday night to this bullshit?” Auriemma says to his fellow coaches, referencing UConn’s near-perfect performance in the national semifinal versus UCLA.
It’s no definitive history, though. Given the limited scope, some major points are skipped. It doesn’t acknowledge UConn’s first trip to a Final Four in 1991, which Auriemma has said was a foundational moment for the success that followed. The 1995 MLK Day game versus Tennessee isn’t mentioned — only a few clips of it are shown without much context. The Huskies’ back-to-back undefeated national championships with Maya Moore and Tina Charles, as well as Breanna Stewart’s four-peat, are little more than footnotes.
It would’ve probably been better if it either entirely served as a the history of the program, or a behind-the-scenes look at the 2024-25 season. They couldn’t manage two more episodes to focus on Moore and Stewart?
There’s also a two moments that felt shoehorned in. Early on, Auriemma argues with someone off-camera about whether his shoes are squeaking. The point of it seems to be that the coach will speak his mind to anyone — his team or a documentary crew — but it comes across as a cheap shot. Then the final episode, Fudd divulges her relationship with Bueckers, which only losely connects with the rest of the storyline.
“Paige and I are a couple,” Fudd says. “Everyone close to us, that was important, knew, but it was kind of one of those things that just is private. Not a secret, but it’s private.”
None of that should take away from the fact that “The Dynasty” is highly entertaining. It’ll appeal to a wide audience — from diehard fans who have been around since the field house days to the casual observer. Anyone who watches will come away with a better understanding of what drives Auriemma and how UConn came to dominate the landscape of women’s basketball.
Perhaps the entire theme of the series in summed up by Auriemma and Ashlynn Shade in the aftermath of the Huskies’ national championship.
“See, all that getting yelled at isn’t so bad,” he tells her.
“No, it’s all worth it,” she replies with a impossibly wide grin.
