But that only captures the high notes. Those who follow the women\u2019s game know the cinematic narrative of Bueckers\u2019 story: the freshman sensation who was sidelined by injuries only to come back to reclaim her glory. Bueckers entered the NCAA the same year as such superstars as Caitlin Clark<\/a> and Angel Reese<\/a>, but had to sit out a chunk of her sophomore year as well as the entirety of what was supposed to be her junior year. So as her peers went pro, driving up WNBA viewership and excitement, Bueckers took advantage of her remaining eligibility and stayed at UConn, where this past college season centered on her quest to finally win a title. It is, after all, practically a birthright at a school that had won 11 championships since 1995 and boasts such legends as Sue Bird<\/a>, Diana Tauras<\/a>i, and Maya Moore<\/a> among its alums. Had the Huskies lost, Bueckers would have gone down in history as the first UConn all-time great to fall short of the ultimate prize. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if a player has felt more pressure to validate a collegiate career with a championship than Paige has,\u201d says Wings executive vice president and general manager Curt Miller, Bueckers\u2019 new boss. \u201cHow she navigated that and thrived through that was really, really special to witness.\u201d<\/p>\n Now Bueckers will exit one pressure cooker and enter another, with minimal rest. The WNBA schedule punishes incoming rookies, especially those like Bueckers who make it to the last day of the NCAA tournament. Celebrate your championship, do media and appearances, get drafted, do more media and appearances, almost instantly report to training camp. Expectations have soared in Big D: Wings ticket prices skyrocketed after Bueckers\u2019 selection. In this booming era for the WNBA, Bueckers\u2019 rookie campaign\u2014along with other intrigue, like defending WNBA MVP A\u2019ja Wilson\u2019s <\/a>attempt to return the championship trophy to Las Vegas, and Clark\u2019s sophomore year\u2014will be among the biggest storylines of the season, which tips on May 16. <\/p>\n Bueckers delivered something last year\u2019s WNBA Rookie of the Year, Clark, couldn\u2019t: a college championship. So can she not only transform the Wings into a playoff team\u2014as Clark did for the Indiana Fever in \u201924\u2014but also push Dallas closer to a title? This isn\u2019t the WNBA of old, unspooling under the radar. All eyes are on Paige Buckets. Next woman up. <\/p>\n Bueckers, who hails from Hopkins, Minn., was an athletic tomboy. \u201cThere were some times where I would get made fun of because I dressed like a boy, or I only played with the boys. I didn\u2019t play with stereotypical girlie things,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes it would bother me. But it never bothered me to a point where I wanted to change.\u201d She tried other sports, like track and softball, as a kid. \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t play volleyball because she wasn\u2019t going to wear those tight tights,\u201d says her dad Bob, a software developer. <\/p>\n Basketball, however, was an early favorite. When she was 6, Bob took his daughter to a Minnesota Lynx\u2013Los Angeles Sparks game: Candace Parker<\/a> was a rookie for the Sparks and would go on to win both Rookie of the Year and league MVP that 2008 season. \u201cWhen I get to the league, I want to be her teammate,\u201d Bueckers told her dad. (So close. Parker retired right before last season.)<\/p>\n After watching Bueckers play against older competition when she was in sixth grade, photojournalist Gary Knox sent out a tweet comparing her to Taurasi. \u201cRemember the name: Paige Bueckers,\u201d wrote Knox, whose 2013 missive went viral after UConn clinched its 2025 championship. \u201cBest 6th grade G [guard] I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBelieve it or not, the footwork you see now, the poise, the tight ballhandling on a rope, is what I saw back then,\u201d says Knox. The official Merriam-Webster X account replied to his tweet with a link to \u201cthe definition of prescient.\u201d <\/p>\n Videographers began lining the sidelines of her high school and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) games, so they could record and cut her highlights. \u201cAt the time, it was only guys in the NBA, guys in college, guys in high school who were getting mixtapes,\u201d says Bueckers. Outlets like Courtside Films, Overtime, SLAM, and Ballislife invested heavily in Bueckers. \u201cThey really placed a bet on me,\u201d she says. In high school she was stunned to see her Instagram following move from the upper 9,000s to 10K. \u201cYou see the K next to your name and you\u2019re just like, \u2018Whoa, what is even happening?\u2019\u201d says Bueckers. She now has 2.5 million followers. That\u2019s an M next to her name.<\/p>\n Crowds would linger after games, to get autographs and take pictures with her. \u201cIt\u2019d be like, \u2018The bus is leaving, Paige, so you\u2019re going to have to get your own ride home,\u2019\u201d says Brian Cosgriff, Bueckers\u2019 coach at Hopkins High School. In 2020, Cosgriff walked into a Foot Locker in Miami, and a stranger recognized his Hopkins High polo shirt. \u201cHey, that\u2019s where Paige Buckets went,\u201d the guy said to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n Geno Auriemma, UConn\u2019s Hall of Fame women\u2019s basketball coach, first saw Bueckers before her ninth-grade season. \u201cI just thought, \u2018Man, she\u2019s so frail,\u2019\u201d says Auriemma. Cosgriff had nicknamed her Olive Oyl, after the rail-thin Popeye character. \u201cShe\u2019s having trouble breathing,\u201d says Auriemma. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018What\u2019s the big deal about this kid?\u2019\u201d She was a bit under the weather; upon repeat viewing, he was plenty sold. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a shot she doesn\u2019t think she can make,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s not an opinion she doesn\u2019t think she can have. This kid\u2019s just a walking definition of confidence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Bueckers committed to UConn after her junior year of high school. While she scored 20 points per game as a freshman and broke the school\u2019s record for assists in a freshman season, Auriemma thought she was being too selfless. Given her efficiency\u2014she consistently shot north of 50% from the field and 40% from three-point range in college, which is incredible for a lead guard\u2014he had a point. \u201cI said, \u2018You know, you\u2019re torturing me,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cLet me give you some words that would never come out of a men\u2019s basketball coach\u2019s mouth to any of their players. Never uttered. \u2018Yo, dude, you gotta shoot more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Auriemma compares Bueckers to Dennis the Menace, a rascally young comic-strip character who debuted in the 1950s and a reference lost on Bueckers\u2019 generation. \u201cYou know, charming, cute kid, means well, but just cannot help themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have to do something on the court, off the court, say something to let you know that there\u2019s some mischief lurking in there.\u201d Bueckers would take a defensive risk that would backfire, then go out and make a bunch of shots to make up for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n UConn reached the Final Four in Bueckers\u2019 first year but lost to Arizona in the semis. That summer of 2021, during her acceptance speech for Best Female College Athlete at the ESPY Awards, Bueckers went out of her way to shine a light on Black women \u201cwho don\u2019t get the media coverage they deserve.\u201d Bob and Bueckers\u2019 mom, dental-equipment specialist Amy Fuller, divorced when she was 3, and Bueckers has a Black half -brother, who\u2019s 12. Black women also had a big influence on her growing up. <\/p>\n Bueckers believes Black women remain undercovered. \u201cIt\u2019s still an issue, every single day,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s not ever equal coverage.\u201d While her on-court accomplishments speak for themselves, she thinks she has an advantage in the endorsement world. \u201cThere\u2019s white privilege every single day that I see,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve worked extremely hard, blessed by God. But I do think there\u2019s more opportunities for me. I feel like even just marketability, people tend to favor white people, white males, white women. I think it should be equal opportunity. I feel like there is privilege to what I have, and to what all white people have. I recognize that, I want to counteract that with the way I go about my business.\u201d<\/p>\n Bueckers missed nearly three months of her sophomore season because of a knee injury but came back before the NCAA tournament to help UConn reach the championship game, where the Huskies lost to South Carolina. In retrospect, Bueckers says rushing back from that injury did more harm than good. \u201cI was just so dead set on returning, and I don\u2019t think my body was necessarily ready for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She spent that summer in Storrs, lifting weights and eating as much as she could to build up mass. Then, during a pickup game in August 2022, she tore her ACL in the same knee she\u2019d hurt as a sophomore. Bueckers recalls the four days before surgery as a low point. \u201cI was just in a really bad place,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was almost like I was having an out-of-body experience, to where I didn\u2019t believe it was happening to me. It was straight disbelief. Shock and hurt.\u201d She would be out her whole junior season.<\/p>\n Without Bueckers, UConn failed to make the Final Four for the first time since 2007, but it was during that season that she found a new role for herself: giving motivational talks during games that earned her the moniker Coach P. \u201cSomething that was so incredible for me to see was how she handled her rehab process,\u201d says UConn teammate and close friend Azzi Fudd. \u201cShe definitely did get down, but she never let anyone see that outside of a select few, in her own space. In public with the team, at the gym, she was always upbeat, making sure everyone else was good.\u201d Bueckers, meanwhile, brought the same ferocity to her recovery that she brings to her game. \u201cI had the mindset of, every single day conquered will be a day closer to me playing basketball,\u201d says Bueckers. <\/p>\n She returned for the 2023\u20132024 season, which ended in crushing disappointment: a loss in the national semifinals to Iowa and Clark that was decided on a controversial foul call. \u201cI\u2019m still sick about that game,\u201d says Bueckers. \u201cThe weeks after it, I just felt so disappointed, frustrated with how it ended. But then, like always, the motivation piece kicks in, where you don\u2019t ever want to feel that feeling again.\u201d<\/p>\n Bueckers started working with a sports psychologist last fall. \u201cIn the offseason, I let voices get in my head, where I need to be this aggressive, selfish player,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was never going to work for me, that was never going to work for the team.\u201d Three losses before the final stretch of this season\u2014at Notre Dame and at home to USC in December, and at Tennessee in February\u2014tested her. \u201cI wasn\u2019t the best leader at the beginning,\u201d she says. \u201cI still made excuses, still tried to find reasons why I didn\u2019t do something.\u201d Auriemma challenged her to change that behavior and be an even more vocal presence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got more of a sense of urgency,\u201d says sophomore UConn guard KK Arnold. \u201cShe always had her speeches before practice. And during practice we were always engaged, always paying attention, making sure we\u2019re doing the little things that we\u2019re supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Between the Tennessee loss and the national-championship matchup, UConn won 15 straight games by an average margin of 32.1 points. Bueckers\u2019 chase for that elusive title was the chatter of March Madness. But during the tournament, Auriemma downplayed that narrative. \u201cI walked in and said, \u2018Hey guys, anybody know the phrase win one for the Gipper?\u2019\u201d says Auriemma. This not being 1940, he explained the basics. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in that crap,\u201d he told them. \u201cI said, \u2018This isn\u2019t about a crusade to land one for Paige. This is about trying to do something that\u2019s really, really hard to do.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Paige, you don\u2019t owe anybody anything. You\u2019ve already given all the people here at Connecticut more than they bargained for. Way more.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the night before the April 6 title game, Bueckers started crying while talking to her sports psychologist. \u201cI just wanted to win it so bad,\u201d she says. They discussed redirecting her anxiety toward winning each possession, to distract from the end goal: bringing the trophy back to UConn, which last won a championship in 2016. The team\u2019s 82-59 victory the next day validated all the effort. \u201cFor her to battle through everything and come back stronger than ever,\u201d says Arnold, \u201cand be as big a leader as she was, it just makes it 10 times better.\u201d <\/p>\n After WNBA commissioner<\/a> Cathy Engelbert<\/a> called her name as the No. 1 draft pick on April 14, Bueckers kept putting her hand over her heart. She did so after hugging her parents, Fudd, and Auriemma, and while watching Wings fans in Arlington, Texas, celebrate her selection. \u201cYou\u2019re just, like, touching your heart,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Holly Rowe noted. So in an elevator on the way to a flood of interviews with outlets like New York magazine, Today, CBS Sports, and Vogue, I ask Bueckers about that gesture. <\/p>\n Turns out some nervous perspiration had frayed the adhesive holding her Louis Vuitton blazer in place, and she feared revealing too much in front of 1.25 million viewers. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel as trusting in the tape as when the night first started,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cI did not want a wardrobe malfunction, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d A league escort worked the phone to secure some double-sided tape, pronto. <\/p>\n Before the draft, Bueckers and her fellow soon-to-be pros walked the WNBA orange carpet. It was about 40 feet long, though a WNBA official said the league would have needed 100 feet to accommodate all the outlets requesting space. As Bueckers zipped around throughout the evening, she did her best to accommodate fans\u2019 requests. \u201cI\u2019m never washing my hands again,\u201d a young girl said, jumping up and down after a shake from Bueckers. A boy stood frozen as he witnessed Bueckers descending an escalator. \u201cOh my God, Paige Bueckers,\u201d he said. \u201cCan I get a picture?\u201d Bueckers stopped for the snapshot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nike threw her a draft-night celebration, where some 150 of her friends and family danced late into the night. It was there, she tells me at a New York City restaurant a few days later, that it sank in: the UConn chapter of her career is over. \u201cThis has been one of the greatest two weeks of my life in terms of happiness and joy, but also, I\u2019ll just be sitting in my room and start crying,\u201d says Bueckers. \u201cIt\u2019s tears of happiness, you\u2019re so extremely grateful that it even happened. But you\u2019re obviously sad that it\u2019s ending.\u201d<\/p>\n After going 10 days without touching a basketball, Bueckers would have to ramp up her workouts in preparation for the WNBA campaign. \u201cPaige is going to have to make the adjustment,\u201d says Miller. \u201cThe speed of the game, the rules of the game, the physicality, is all different. The veterans aren\u2019t going to take it easy on the rookie. Paige is going to feel her rookie moment at some point. She will have to navigate the comparisons to the adjustment that Caitlin had. We\u2019re all mindful and aware, but we\u2019re going to be very supportive that this is Paige\u2019s journey, and no one else\u2019s journey.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Bueckers takes those comparisons in stride. \u201cThat\u2019s what the media cares about,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s what everybody who watches basketball cares about. I used to be bothered by it. But I\u2019ve done so much work on myself and my approach. The ability to not run a race in comparison, to run my own race and worry about that. Caitlin\u2019s a phenomenal player. We\u2019re also completely different players.\u201d Pitting the two most recent No. 1 draft picks against each other, Bueckers admits, \u201cis good for the game. At the end of the day, I don\u2019t think either of us really cares about it, because we\u2019re just trying to be the best versions of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s ready for the North Texas heat. \u201cI want to give everything I have to the organization, to the city,\u201d says Bueckers. \u201cI know Dallas is a sports city. I\u2019m walking in there wanting to be a great leader, a great teammate, wanting to be a winner at all levels, wearing that jersey and representing that city with pride and a passion and joy for the game of basketball. I want to give to that community. I want to be invested in it. We\u2019re all looking to do something special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That will all come soon enough. For now, Bueckers, clad in a national-championship sweatshirt, just wants to eat a double cheeseburger with her friends, who are waiting at a nearby table. As the sun sets on her championship celebration, she\u2019ll steal a few last moments. Then Buckets will go back to work. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early April, three days after winning a national title for the University of Connecticut Huskies and closing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[402,1766,99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-293012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-magazine","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Connecticut](\"https:\/\/time.com\/redesign\/_next\/image\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.time.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F05%2Fpaige-bueckers-basketball-uconn.jpg&w=3840&q=75\"\/)
Bueckers expanded her reach through NIL deals with Nike, Gatorade, and Uber Jared C. Tilton\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"WNBA](\"https:\/\/time.com\/redesign\/_next\/image\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.time.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F05%2Fpaige-bueckers-wnbda-draft-wings.jpg&w=3840&q=75\"\/)
Bueckers with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert at the WNBA Draft on April 14( Pamela Smith\u2014AP<\/p>\n