Paige Bueckers selected No. 1 by Dallas Wings

Paige Bueckers will begin her WNBA career the same way she ended her time in college: No. 1.

Dallas led off the three-round, 38-pick WNBA draft Monday in New York by selecting Bueckers first overall, as expected, just eight days after she led Connecticut to the NCAA championship.

“Dallas, I’m so excited,” Bueckers said on the ESPN broadcast minutes after she was drafted. “A new city, a new start, a fresh start, and so I’m excited. Let’s get it.”

Bueckers said she had an “overwhelming sense of gratitude” for being selected first after a collegiate career in which injuries often sidelined her.

“I didn’t do it alone,” she said. “So it took a village.”

Seattle selected French center Dominique Malonga second, and Washington took Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron and USC’s Kiki Iriafen third and fourth, respectively. At fifth overall, Lithuanian guard Juste Jocyte became the first draft pick taken in the history of the Golden State Valkyries, the expansion franchise set to play its first season in 2025. Like Malonga, Jocyte is a 19-year-old who will enter the league younger than their collegiate counterparts.

Bueckers averaged 19.8 points, shooting 53% from the field and 42% on 3-pointers during her superlative four-year career at UConn, which ended with her winning her long-elusive national title — Connecticut’s first in nine years — in her final game.

Bueckers put herself in contention to become a future No. 1 overall pick as early as 2021 after she became the first freshman to win multiple awards for collegiate player of the year. Yet leg injuries sidelined her for half of her sophomore season, and then in the following offseason she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee and missed the entire 2022-23 season.

The Wings picked first after they finished 9-31 last season, the WNBA’s second-worst record. As Connecticut was preparing for the Final Four of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament last week, Bueckers was tight-lipped when she was asked about speculation that she didn’t prefer to play in Dallas, saying there was “nowhere specific” she wanted to be.

“Wherever I end up,” Bueckers told reporters days before the Huskies’ championship victory in Tampa, Florida.