A UConn star said of the difference in Elite Eight thriller vs NC State: 'We have Paige Bueckers and they don't'

• Paige Bueckers dominated overtime in UConn's thrilling Elite Eight victory over NC State.
• As the sophomore superstar took over, her teammates could only watch the magic unfold in awe.

Paige Bueckers dazzled the basketball world with her incredible Elite Eight performance that helped the UConn Huskies punch their ticket to a 14th-straight Final Four.

And even her Huskies teammates were awestruck by their point guard's magic.

The superstar sophomore dropped a game-high 27 points in UConn's double-overtime thriller against the top-seeded NC State Wolfpack on Monday in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bueckers dropped 23 of those points after the half, with a whopping 15 coming over the two five-minute overtime periods.

At one point, the 6-foot guard scored eight consecutive OT points for the Huskies, completely taking over the game when Geno Auriemma's squad needed her most.

"Literally I was thinking, we have Paige Bueckers, and they don't," UConn senior Christyn Williams recalled thinking during the final stretch of the game.

"I mean, once she makes one, the rim is like this big," she added, stretching her arms out in the shape of a giant hoop. "She's just going to keep making them. So just keep giving her the ball."

Bueckers' heroics were undoubtedly magnificent to watch — especially considering she's only been back on the court following a knee injury for a month. But to Williams and other Huskies who see the star day-in and day-out, Bueckers' stellar play was "not really surprising."

"She does it every day in practice," Williams noted.

Auriemma echoed that sentiment during his own portion of the press conference.

"Paige does it routinely in practice every day, and so the players have come to expect that she would do what she did tonight," the Hall of Fame coach said. "And she did it so often last year."

"Paige is different," he added.

Azzi Fudd — the freshman guard who is arguably Bueckers' closest friend on the team, having played together for several years before arriving in Storrs — suggested that the Minnesota native's late-game tear may have been inspired by the NC State player she was guarding.

When UConn looked to have victory in hand as the clock wound down in the first overtime period, Wolfpack star Jakia Brown-Turner drained a jaw-dropping three-pointer at the last second to buy NC State another five minutes of play.

She sank the shot over Bueckers' outstretched hand.

"That whole game [Bueckers] was amazing," Fudd said. "But I think NC State hitting that big shot to put us into that second overtime on her was the best thing they could do — but [also] the worst thing they could do."

Bueckers chuckled.

"I just wanted to continue to play, and Coach is always huge on me about just making sure to find a way to win," Bueckers said earlier in the press conference. "So I think that was the key tonight."

Bueckers and company will now head to the Final Four in Minneapolis, Minnesota — less than 10 miles from Bueckers' hometown of Edina, Minnesota — to face the reigning-champion Stanford Cardinal in Friday's national semifinal at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Should the Huskies win, they'll advance to their first championship game since winning the title in 2016.