Paige Bueckers of UConn is the early favorite to be selected first in the WNBA draft in 2025. Here’s why she’s currently trending on the internet.
Even though Paige Bueckers wasn’t a recruit, she became one of the most talked-about names during Monday’s 2024 WNBA draft.
As Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mhl, two of her former UConn teammates, were selected by the Washington Mystics and Seattle Storm, respectively, Bueckers stood in the audience, grinning, shouting, and snapping photographs of them while decked up in an all-white Louis Vuitton ensemble and gold accessories.
Soon after Bueckers’ comments on X (previously known as Twitter), the internet created a meme calling her a “proud mom.” Adding their voice to the discussion, UConn Women’s Basketball tweeted a video of Bueckers’ response to Edwards’ selection along with the words “you’re doing amazing sweetie”—a reference to another “proud mom,” Kris Jenner.
Although Bueckers won over fans’ hearts as a spectator, she is a true star on the court who will be starting her fifth and probably last year at UConn a national title before to making the switch to the WNBA.
It’s almost easy to forget that Bueckers was the initial “It Girl” of the 2020 draft class with all the talk surrounding Caitlin Clark in the past year. According to UConn, she was a freshman in 2021 when she received many honors, including the Wooden Award, the Naismith Trophy, the ESPY for Best College Athlete—Women’s Sports, and the Big East Player of the Year.
After injuries derailed Bueckers’ progress in her sophomore season and had her benched for the duration of her junior year due to an ACL rupture, she made an exciting and much anticipated comeback to the court in 2023 and made a strong run to the Final Four in March Madness.
The 2023–2024 season brought women’s collegiate basketball to previously unheard-of levels, drawing more spectators to the NCAA women’s final NIL partnerships provide athletes like Clark and Angel Reese a bigger platform to sell themselves and the sport to a wider audience, and the women’s competition attracted more viewers than the men’s for the first time.
The change isn’t exclusive to collegiate sports. According to the league, the 2023 WNBA season was “its most-watched regular season in 21 years,” and Deloitte forecast that women’s sports will earn more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time.
Discover why Paige Bueckers is the newest fascination on the internet and get to know her before she makes her final dance return to UConn.
Paige Bueckers’ father, Bob Bueckers, attempted to get her involved in other sports when she was younger, but she persisted on playing basketball exclusively until she was in first grade, according to a 2020 Bleacher Report profile on the rising star during her final year of high school.A two-time Gatorade Player of the Year by her senior year at Hopkins, Minnesota, she went by the moniker “Paige Buckets.” She was averaging 21.4 points and 9.2 assists per game at the time of the profile.”Since I can never achieve perfection, I can always aim to be the best. Even though I’m just in high school and haven’t reached my full potential yet, I want to continue on to college and the professional ranks. I’d want to the 18-year-old Bueckers told the reporter, “Just keep playing basketball, keep getting better, and never get complacent with where I’m at right now.”Paige Bueckers was ranked as the top high school prospect by espnW’s 2020 HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings, surpassing even previous WNBA draftees like Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso, and yes, even Caitlin Clark.
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