Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd returned to the state of Connecticut on Thursday for the first time as teammates in the WNBA, just over a year since they led the Connecticut Huskies to the 2025 NCAA Championship. This time they were in Dallas Wings white.
But facts are facts — these two know how to win in Hartford, where UConn typically plays seven or eight games each season. Bueckers led the Wings (12-8) with 25 points, seven assists and seven rebounds in an 86-83 comeback win over the Connecticut Sun (4-16) at PeoplesBank Arena.
“Players stepping up and making huge shots,” Jessica Shepard said in a televised postgame interview. “Obviously Paige came up huge — just what you’d expect from her.”
Bueckers scored 11 of her 25 points in the fourth quarter, but also hit her first two 3-point attempts of the first quarter. Her second tied the game, 13-13, with 3:40 left in the frame. Odyssey Sims, who returned to the floor Thursday after missing the Wings’ last nine games with an ankle injury, found Bueckers wide open near the top of the key for that one.
But the Sun’s defense has been salty lately, and Connecticut held Dallas to just 5-of-16 shooting from the field in the first, including just 1-of-5 in the paint, to take a 22-16 lead after one. Connecticut held their last two opponents to just 63 and 57 points coming into Thursday’s game.
The Sun’s 11-0 run continued into the second quarter, and Wings head coach Jose Fernandez called a timeout with 8:24 left in the first half after Charlisse Leger-Walker curled off a Brittney Griner screen for a pull-up jumper that extended the Connecticut lead to 26-16.
Every time the Wings battled back, the Sun had an answer. Alanna Smith hit her first 3-pointer of the game from the left wing on an assist from Bueckers to cut the deficit to 34-28 with 4:16 left in the first half, but Connecticut built the lead back up to 13 over the next minute and a half.
Bueckers was the only Wing who found any rhythm throughout the first half, finishing with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including 2-of-3 from 3-point land, and four assists as Dallas trailed 43-35 at the break. Leila Lecan led the Sun with 12 in the first half as well.
Jessica Shepard broke out of her 0-for-3 first-half funk on the Wings’ first possession of the third quarter, scoring on a quick turnaround inside from Fudd, but was called for a flagrant foul on the other end when her elbow hit Griner above the shoulders after Lacan’s jumper went down to make it 45-37.
The third quarter devolved into a mess as each foul review took longer than the last. Dallas finally made a dent in the Connecticut lead in the last two minutes of the frame and trailed 62-55 going into the fourth. The Sun took 14 free throws in the third.
After a scoreless first half, Shepard got into the act as the Wings chipped away at the Sun’s lead late in the third and in to start the fourth. She cut open on a pick-and-roll and scored an easy one inside to cut the Connecticut lead to 64-59 with just over eight minutes left to play and force a Sun timeout.
Shepard scored again on an authoritative drive to the hoop with 3:45 left to play to cut the lead to 74-70, before Bueckers finished a frantic play inside the next time down to make it 74-72. Bueckers made one of those impossible and-1 prayers the next time down to cut it to 76-75, and Li Yueru hit a huge baseline 3-ball just seconds later to tie the game at 78-78.
Bueckers scored her second straight and-1 jumper over Leger-Walker with 1:17 left to play to give the Wings an 81-78 lead, Dallas’ first lead since it was 16-15. But Aaliyah Edwards had an answer on the other end, tying the game on a three-point play of her own through Bueckers’ fifth foul of the game.
“If you watched us the last couple weeks, a lot of our games have looked like this,” Bueckers said in her televised postgame interview. “It doesn’t look good for 36 minutes, but we find a way down the stretch.”
Fudd knocked down a couple clutch jumpers down the stretch, including the bucket that put Dallas up 83-81 with 51 seconds left to play, and Bueckers and Shepard knocked down 3-of-4 at the line to put the win away.
The Wings couldn’t find the shots they wanted on the offensive end against the Sun. Connecticut’s team defense stayed in front of the Wings for the length of the shot clock time and time again. They just made Dallas work every time down the floor.
The Wings scored just four points through the first five minutes of the second quarter as the Sun built a 12-point lead on nothing but solid execution on both ends of the floor.
Connecticut has a lot of size at the guard position, and that seemed to bother the Wings at the point of attack all night long. Fudd, Arike Ogunbowale and Jessica Shepard shot a combined 2-of-14 from the field in the first half in the face of the Sun’s relentless pressure.
The WNBA has to do something about the amount of time it takes officiating crews to turn around a review for a flagrant foul or a coach’s challenge. It’s either a basketball play or it isn’t. You watch two or three camera angles. Then you make a judgement call. There is absolutely no need for these reviews to take five minutes apiece.
The game loses all momentum while the officials adjust their pants and hold their hands over their mouths amid drawn-out conversations after the fact. Make the damn call. Get on with it. It’s excruciating.
There were two lengthy discussions about potential flagrant fouls in the first three and a half minutes of the third quarter. Both were completely unnecessary. Then Fernandez challenged a foul call against Odyssey Sims with 4:17 left in the frame, and it took five more minutes for the officials to switch the foul from Sims to Maddy Siegrist. The officials dragged their feet on two more coach’s challenges in the fourth quarter. The product on the court is suffering because of the officials’ inability to get these reviews taken care of in a timely manner.
Assign the official closest to the play in question to make these calls instead of having these midcourt confabulations that accomplish nothing other than making all three feel heard. Make the call while we’re still young. Rant over.
The Wings needed much more from Fudd than what they got from her through the first 35 minutes of the game. She missed her first five shots, then let the lack of production lull her into hesitancy the rest of the game.
Fudd turned the ball over for the fifth time with 7:20 left to play, throwing a pass to no one in particular for the third time in the game. She curled into the lane following an offensive rebound earlier in the possession but refused to put a shot up, then threw the ball away later in the possession with the Wings down 66-59.
Fudd pulled up for her first basket of the game with just over five minutes left in the fourth, though, to cut the Sun’s lead to 72-68. That seemed to spark something for the Wings down the stretch, and Azzi added one more clutch make down the stretch, putting Dallas in front 83-81 with another pull-up with 51 seconds to play.
The Wings needed those four points Fudd provided like they need air and water. Those were huge buckets on a tough night, and they helped put Dallas over the top against the Sun.