Former UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers is a Top 30 finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year, the award’s selection committee announced Wednesday.
Players from NCAA members schools across all three divisions are considered for the prestigious award, and this year’s field included a record-breaking 631 nominees submitted for consideration. Established in 1991, the award is rooted in Title IX and recognizes female student-athletes who have completed their undergraduate degrees and distinguished themselves in their community, in athletics and in academics throughout their college careers.
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The 30 finalists are comprised of 10 athletes from each division. Bueckers was the only basketball player named to the top 30.
Bueckers, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, led UConn to the 2025 NCAA Championship and graduated as one of the best players ever to come through the program. In her redshirt senior season, she won the Wade Trophy, the Honda Sport Award and the Nancy Lieberman Award for the nation’s best point guard on top of earning unanimous first-team All-American honors. Bueckers also became the first player ever named Most Outstanding Player of the Big East Tournament three times and earned her third conference Player of the Year honor.
Off the court, Bueckers was just as impactful. The Huskies star volunteered at Connecticut Children’s Hospital where she spent time with patients in-person and virtually while participating in the hospital’s social media-based fundraising campaigns, and she was an active member of UConn coach Geno Auriemma’s charity events. Bueckers also provided funding and support for free grocery stores at Hopkins West Junior High School in her home state Minnesota and on UConn’s campus from 2022-25.
Bueckers was the 2024 BIG EAST Scholar Athlete of the Year and a 2024 CSC First Team Academic All-American, graduating from UConn with degree in Human Development and Family Studies with a 3.49 GPA.
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Huskies great Rebecca Lobo is the only UConn athlete who has won NCAA Woman of the Year, earning the accolade in 1995. Lobo is also one of just two basketball players ever to receive the honor joined by Tennessee’s Nicky Anosike in 2008. The last UConn women’s basketball player to make the top 30 was Kia Nurse in 2018.
