Paige Bueckers Addresses Potentially Being Picked First by Dallas Wings in WNBA Draft
The UConn Huskies women's basketball team had quite an eventful Wednesday.
Not only did they have a regular season game against Farleigh Dickinson University (which they won by over 40 points), but Wednesday also marked the first time budding superstar Azzi Fudd returned to the court since tearing her ACL last November.
But Fudd's return wasn't even the highlight of the night. That honor is given to Geno Auriemma, who set the record for the most wins in NCAA Division I basketball history, with 1,217.
Auriemma accomplished this staggering feat (which took him 40 seasons) in front of 63 of his former players; many of whom have gone on to become basketball legends in their own right.
And another Huskies player who seems destined for greatness is Paige Bueckers, who has had her own chaos to deal with over the past few days. Of course, this is regarding the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery, which the Dallas Wings won and are now expected to select Bueckers with the No. 1 pick.
Bueckers played it coy when asked about the Draft Lottery result on Tuesday. But one day later, she got honest about the Wings winning that No. 1 pick.
"People think I'm lying. I actually didn't watch it, it was giving me too much anxiety," Bueckers said of Sunday's lottery, per X user @JN21666. "So I just decided to... whatever was going to happen, regardless of whether I was watching or not, so I just kind of let the things happen and figure out after.
When the media member asked Bueckers about Dallas winning the draft and likely using that pick to select her, she said, "I honestly don't want to get complacent. I want to stay humble, stay grounded, stay in the moment. Nothing in the future is guaranteed, so just taking every moment as it is.
"I'm a firm believer in God has a plan for me, so whatever that is, I'm ready to do it," she concluded.
This is what Paige said about Dallas today!!🙂
— J (@JN21666) November 21, 2024
(Pls stfu with the “eli manning” or sixth year conspiracies🙄) pic.twitter.com/JxKezbduF0
Wise words from the 22-year-old superstar.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.