Paige Madison Bueckers is an American college basketball player for the University of Connecticut Huskies of the Big East Conference. At Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Bueckers was ranked as the number one recruit in her class by ESPN and received national high school player of the year honors.
Paige Bueckers: Brothers| Gatorade deal| Injury| Best friend
Brothers:
Bueckers has another younger brother, Ryan, and a younger sister, Lauren.
Birthplace: Edina, Minn. Hometown: St. Louis Park, Minn. Personal: Daughter of Amy Dettbarn and Bob Bueckers.
Brian Cosgriff first saw Paige Bueckers play when she was in second grade, during a scrimmage at the University of Minnesota.
She was playing against fourth graders “and dominating.”
Gatorade Deal:
“Paige was a peanut, she was a tiny little thing,” said Cosgriff, Bueckers’s former head basketball coach at Hopkins High School. “As a seventh grader she was still a peanut, only this time, she was dominating the junior varsity team.”
UConn’s Paige Bueckers has become the first-ever college athlete to be signed by Gatorade during the Name, Image and Likeness era.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting she could make an estimated $1 million a year in endorsements between Gatorade and another deal with StockX.
Injury:
For Bueckers, something clicked into gear. After scoring just four points in the first half, she exploded for 23 in the second half in UConn’s 91-87 double-overtime epic versus top-seeded NC State.
Bueckers finished with 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting in a game that had head coach Geno Auriemma acknowledging her new place among some UConn legends.
Losing a player in dramatic fashion was par for the course for UConn during the 2021-22 season. The Huskies lost Bueckers for almost three months after she hyperextended her knee on Dec. 5 in a win against Notre Dame.
Best friend:
Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd are both uber-talented basketball phenoms, gold medalists and the closest of friends off the court, but in reality, they couldn’t be more different.
A foot injury — something that had been bothering her since the summer — sidelined Fudd for the next 11 games. On Wednesday, Fudd returned to the court for the first time in two months.
