It was Sunday and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley was saying the same thing UConn coach Geno Auriemma has said over and over, almost as if he had enlisted the opposing coach’s help in his argument.

“I love Paige’s game,” Staley said after an 83-65 victory over UConn in Columbia, South Carolina, referring to UConn star Paige Bueckers. “I mean, for me, I would like her to take more shots. If I’m Geno, I would like her to take more shots ’cause she doesn’t take bad shots.”

Auriemma has been trying to will Bueckers, the 2021 national player of a year as a freshman, to take more shots since she’s been on campus.

Now, with 15th-ranked UConn missing five players for the remainder of the season due to injuries, leaving them nine healthy players and a rotation of seven, Bueckers needs to do even more. Bueckers missed all of last season due to a knee injury. She’s not getting much rest.

Moments before Staley’s words, Auriemma said the same thing when he was asked what needs to happen for the Huskies going forward.

“She’s got a lot on her shoulders right now,” Auriemma said of Bueckers.

UConn (20-5 overall, 12-0 Big East) returns to business as usual Wednesday at Xavier in Cincinnati (7 p.m., SNY), knowing where it stands against top-ranked South Carolina and going about getting better leading into March. Xavier is 1-20, 0-12.

“We have a bunch of young guys playing college basketball for the first time and they’ve gotten better and better each and every week and we need to make sure they keep getting better every week,” Auriemma said of his team, which includes four freshmen, two of them in the starting lineup.

“We need to make sure they keep getting better every week. We have to do more things right than ever before because of the situation that we’re in. We’re not going to get any bigger. We’re not going to add any more players. We’re not going to get any taller, but we need to get a little smarter if we want to win some of these games come March.”

Bueckers, a redshirt junior guard, is averaging 20 points per game and senior Aaliyah Edwards is averaging 17.8 points and 9.0 rebounds.

The pair of UConn veterans, Bueckers and Edwards, were named Tuesday to the Naismith Trophy Women’s Player of the Year Midseason Team.

Bueckers is also first for the Huskies in steals (56) and blocks (28) and ranks second in assists (95). She is shooting 53.7%, 44.2% from 3-point range. She has scored 20-or-more points 15 times this season and against teams in the Top 25 she is averaging 22.2 points.

“The scenario to winning and to really good players being really good is you need other good players around you to play well, but you also need time on the bench to recharge yourself,” Auriemma told the media after the South Carolina loss.

“Unfortunately, she doesn’t get enough of that. Unfortunately, Paige doesn’t want to play the way she’s going to have to play down the stretch. She’s going to have to force the issue every time down the floor and that’s not how she likes to play.”

Auriemma said he hopes the team’s younger players learned from the matchup with South Carolina. He said going forward, redshirt freshman Ice Brady has to be better and starting freshman guard KK Arnold needs to understand “when to and when not to.”

“The seven we have right now, it’s going to be on those seven,” Auriemma said. “The bottom line is our starting five has to play really, really well every night for us to be able to win these games.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com