In SELF’s Sleeping With… series, we ask people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life how they make sleep magic happen.
At just 23 years old, Paige Bueckers has already cemented herself as a force in women’s basketball: She’s the fastest player in UConn history to reach 2,000 career points; she was the first freshman to nab the Wooden Award and Naismith Trophy—and, come next month, she’s widely projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft.
But so far, one honor has eluded Bueckers: the NCAA title. The Minnesota native came to UConn with her heart set on winning a national championship, but while her Huskies have consistently ranked among the most formidable teams in the NCAA, they haven’t been able to grab that top spot.
In a sense, though, the continued striving has brought the team closer together: “Players, coaches, support staff, training staff, we’re all very close,” Bueckers tells SELF in an interview over Zoom in February. “When you’re going through something with somebody else, it makes it where you can lean on each other for strength, for guidance, through good times and bad times. They’re always there for you.”
Win or lose during her final March Madness attempt—the Huskies will tip off for the first time at this year’s tournament on March 22—Bueckers is taking comfort in one thing right now: Knowing what comes next. “It’s like a weight lifted off your shoulders,” she says.
Five years after she joined the Huskies in 2020, she says the “plan” is to move on, even though she technically has one season of eligibility left (due to an ACL tear that sidelined her for the entirety of the 2022-2023 season). At roughly this time last year, there was way more uncertainty with her path: Bueckers was widely expected to make ’23-’24 her last season, then sent shock waves through the basketball world when she revealed at a senior-night ceremony in February 2024 that she had decided to stay at UConn another year, as ESPN reported.
“Part of me wanting to stay was me missing a season and a half due to injuries, so wanting to make up for that, get a season back,” Bueckers says. Now, however, she’s ready to turn the page. “I’ve been here for five years. It’s been a long time, longer than the normal four-year college career, and so I felt like the time was right,” she explains. “I’ve had an amazing time here at UConn, an amazing journey. It’s grown me so much as a person, as a player. I’ve enjoyed the relationships, experiences, the bonds. But at some point, the journey has to come to an end, and the next chapter awaits.”
While Bueckers will miss her teammates and the broader Huskies family, she says she is also eager to continue learning and growing in the WNBA among the likes of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Sabrina Ionescu, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and other stars. “As a little kid, I went to Minnesota Lynx games, dreaming to be in their shoes, dreaming to be in the WNBA. I’m definitely not there yet, but God willing, that’s where I want to be,” she says. “Having that opportunity to play in a league that I dreamt of being in, [along] with players that I look up to, it makes you really excited for the future.”