{"id":527946,"date":"2026-03-17T02:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T02:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527946\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T02:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T02:20:08","slug":"paige-bueckers-focusing-on-different-aspect-of-her-game-with-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527946\/","title":{"rendered":"Paige Bueckers Focusing on Different Aspect of Her Game With Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Wings<\/a> guard Paige Bueckers is going through her first experience with the Senior National Team for Team USA, as they play in the FIBA World Cup qualifiers. Bueckers had experience in the U19 and U17 events, but playing alongside and against the world’s best stars on an international stage is new for her. <\/p>\n

Now that she’s playing alongside some of the best players in the world, she’s seeing her role adjust a little bit. She was one of the best scorers in the WNBA and the Unrivaled League, and while she’s still third on Team USA in scoring, it’s not her main role. In fact, she’s choosing to exert a lot of her energy on defense. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think I\u2019ve just taken a great pride in it. I feel like obviously everybody here can score 30 a game if they wanted to,” Bueckers said after Sunday’s win over New Zealand. “So for me, it was what else can I bring? And that\u2019s the intensity on defense. I\u2019m going to just try to stand out that way and set the tone of what we want to do. Be disruptive, get steals, get deflections. I think I\u2019ve taken a great pride in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been a balanced effort for Team USA. Caitlin Clark is leading the team at 12.8 PPG, but Rhyne Howard (12.5 PPG) and Paige Bueckers (11.0) are right behind her. That’s what will make this team extremely difficult to stop in the World Cup in September. Team USA has already qualified, so they’re more using this time to tinker with lineups and make sure everyone gains chemistry with one another. <\/p>\n

FIBA World Cup Qualifiers Update<\/p>\n

Team USA rolled through New Zealand on Sunday, 101-46. Team USA just completely shut down New Zealand’s offensive attack in the second and fourth quarters, outscoring them 50-13 in those two frames. <\/p>\n

Howard led all scorers with 18 points, but of the 11 players who checked into the game for Team USA, 9 of them scored at least 7 points. Bueckers was one of them, putting up 7 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals. She’s leading Team USA in steals at more than 2 per game, showing that improved effort. <\/p>\n

Team USA has one qualifying game remaining against Spain on Tuesday evening. USA is 4-0, while Spain fell on Sunday to Italy for their first loss, dropping them to 3-1. They are also already qualified, though. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers is going through her first experience with the Senior National Team for Team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-527946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527946","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=527946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}