Bueckers becomes the sixth Husky selected first overall in the WNBA Draft.
Just over a week after winning a coveted national championship, Paige Bueckers reached another career milestone when the Dallas Wings selected her first overall in the 2025 WNBA Draft on Monday. Bueckers is the sixth top pick to come out of UConn, joining Sue Bird (2002), Diana Taurasi (2004), Tina Charles (2010), Maya Moore (2011) and Breanna Stewart (2016).
Paige Bueckers is heading to Dallas as the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft presented by @StateFarm! pic.twitter.com/uC9FTmjMXA
— WNBA (@WNBA) April 14, 2025
The top prospect in the 2020 recruiting class — which proved to be a generational group that featured Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso — the Hopkins, Minnesota native lived up to the hype as one of the most accomplished players in women’s college basketball history.
Bueckers became the first freshman ever to win national player of the year in 2021 and eventually earned three consensus First Team All-American honors. Bueckers is one of three players to win Big East Player of the Year three times and the only player to be named Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player on three occasions. When on the court, she never lost a conference contest and helped the Huskies claim eight Big East titles.
In the NCAA Tournament, she’s the only player ever to have 25+ points in four different Elite Eights and is one of two players with four regional most outstanding player awards, joining Moore. Bueckers reached the Final Four in every healthy season and capped off her career with the 2025 national championship.
Despite all the success, Bueckers dealt with plenty of adversity throughout her career. As a freshman, she played through the Covid pandemic in front of empty crowds. The next season, Bueckers missed 19 games with a knee injury and then sat out the entire 2022-23 campaign with a torn ACL. This past year, she missed two contests with a knee sprain.
Now, Bueckers will join a Wings franchise that hasn’t seen much success recently. Since moving to Dallas in 2016, the team has missed the playoffs in four of eight seasons and has only advanced past the first round once. Last year, the Wings went 9-31 and hired a new general manager and head coach over the offseason.
Bueckers is the 48th Husky selected in the WNBA Draft and the 29th first round pick.