{"id":86588,"date":"2025-08-21T16:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T16:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/86588\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T16:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T16:13:07","slug":"wings-paige-bueckers-just-did-something-no-nba-or-wnba-player-has-done-in-57-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/86588\/","title":{"rendered":"Wings’ Paige Bueckers just did something no NBA or WNBA player has done in 57 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wings’ Paige Bueckers just did something no NBA or WNBA player has done in 57 years<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

Amid swirling debate<\/a> over her viability as the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year, Paige Bueckers just did all she could to end the conversation for 2025.<\/p>\n

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Even though her Dallas Wings were eliminated from playoff contention on Wednesday night, Bueckers nearly defeated the host Los Angeles\u00a0Sparks by herself. The star point guard tied a WNBA rookie record by scoring 44 points — the most by any player in The W this season — as the Wings lost, 81-80, on a Kelsey Plum game-winner as time expired.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Why the WNBA could fine Kelsey Plum despite Sparks star’s heroics<\/a><\/p>\n

Bueckers though left no doubt as to her ascendancy into the league’s elite, even before her first WNBA season is over and even though she is starring for a struggling team in Dallas. With her accomplishment on Wednesday, she just did something no WNBA or NBA player has done in nearly six decades.<\/p>\n

Back on March 29, Bueckers scored 40 points for the UConn Huskies in a win over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament; not even five months, she dropped 44 on the Sparks, a team that is only a half-game out of the WNBA’s final playoff spot.<\/p>\n

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This made Bueckers the first player since 1968 to score 40 or more points in an NCAA Tournament game as well as a NBA\/WNBA game in the same calendar year. Just two other players have accomplished this feat, and both are basketball legends: Oscar Robertson in 1960, and Elvin Hayes in 1968.<\/p>\n

With her career night on Wednesday, Bueckers bumped up her scoring average to 19.7 points per game — tops among rookies, and fifth among all WNBA players. Despite the lack of team success, Bueckers has enhanced her status as the Rookie of the Year favorite<\/a>,\u00a0and she is trending toward All-WNBA first team honors at season’s end, too.<\/p>\n

MORE WNBA NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wings’ Paige Bueckers just did something no NBA or WNBA player has done in 57 years originally appeared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,3459,51443,631,632,51444,4658,82,630,11043,30324],"class_list":{"0":"post-86588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dallas-wings","11":"tag-elvin-hayes","12":"tag-kelsey-plum","13":"tag-los-angeles-sparks","14":"tag-ncaa-tournament-game","15":"tag-paige-bueckers","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-wnba","18":"tag-wnba-players","19":"tag-wnba-season"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}