In SELF’s Sleeping With… sequence, we ask folks from completely different profession paths, backgrounds, and phases of life how they make sleep magic occur.
At simply 23 years outdated, Paige Bueckers has already cemented herself as a drive in ladies’s basketball: She’s the quickest participant in UConn historical past to succeed in 2,000 profession factors; she was the primary freshman to nab the Wood Award and Naismith Trophy—and, come subsequent month, she’s extensively projected to be the No. 1 decide within the 2025 WNBA draft.
However thus far, one honor has eluded Bueckers: the NCAA title. The Minnesota native got here to UConn along with her coronary heart set on successful a nationwide championship, however whereas her Huskies have persistently ranked among the many most formidable groups within the NCAA, they haven’t been capable of seize that prime spot.
In a way, although, the continued striving has introduced the crew nearer collectively: “Gamers, coaches, help workers, coaching workers, we’re all very shut,” Bueckers tells SELF in an interview over Zoom in February. “While you’re going via one thing with someone else, it makes it the place you may lean on one another for energy, for steering, via good instances and dangerous instances. They’re all the time there for you.”
Win or lose throughout her closing March Insanity try—the Huskies will tip off for the primary time at this yr’s event on March 22—Bueckers is taking consolation in a single factor proper now: Realizing what comes subsequent. “It’s like a weight lifted off your shoulders,” she says.
5 years after she joined the Huskies in 2020, she says the “plan” is to maneuver on, regardless that she technically has one season of eligibility left (attributable to an ACL tear that sidelined her for everything of the 2022-2023 season). At roughly this time final yr, there was far more uncertainty along with her path: Bueckers was extensively anticipated to make ’23-’24 her final season, then despatched shock waves via the basketball world when she revealed at a senior-night ceremony in February 2024 that she had determined to remain at UConn one other yr, as ESPN reported.
“A part of me wanting to remain was me lacking a season and a half attributable to accidents, so desirous to make up for that, get a season again,” Bueckers says. Now, nevertheless, she’s prepared to show the web page. “I’ve been right here for 5 years. It’s been a very long time, longer than the conventional four-year faculty profession, and so I felt just like the time was proper,” she explains. “I’ve had an incredible time right here at UConn, an incredible journey. It’s grown me a lot as an individual, as a participant. I’ve loved the relationships, experiences, the bonds. However in some unspecified time in the future, the journey has to come back to an finish, and the following chapter awaits.”
Whereas Bueckers will miss her teammates and the broader Huskies household, she says she can also be wanting to proceed studying and rising within the WNBA among the many likes of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Sabrina Ionescu, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and different stars. “As somewhat child, I went to Minnesota Lynx video games, dreaming to be of their sneakers, dreaming to be within the WNBA. I’m undoubtedly not there but, however God prepared, that’s the place I need to be,” she says. “Having that chance to play in a league that I dreamt of being in, [along] with gamers that I look as much as, it makes you actually excited for the longer term.”
