UConn head women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma had to say goodbye to Paige Bueckers, his star guard for five years, after the Huskies won the national championship last April.
Their bond was apparent after UConn beat South Carolina to win the 2025 national title.
“I love that man more than words can describe,” an emotional Bueckers told ESPN’s Holly Rowe.
“Paige has invested so much in this program and the game of basketball, the emotions just all came pouring out,” Auriemma told “Good Morning America” of his tearful hug with Bueckers when she checked out of the game. “There wasn’t a whole lot to say. There was just — I want to feel your emotion, and I want you to feel mine, what you’ve meant to me.”
The Dallas Wings selected Bueckers at No. 1 overall in the 2025 WNBA Draft the following week, and she endured a difficult rookie season under first-year head coach Chris Koclanes. Bueckers was an All-Star, All-WNBA, and Rookie of the Year, but the Wings finished a league-worst 10-34 and fired Koclanes.
The Wings opened training camp on Sunday, and Bueckers is confident her new head coach, Jose Fernandez, can turn things around because she sees Auriemma in him.
“He does remind me a lot of Coach Geno in terms of discipline and structure, the culture that he wants to build, and the no B.S. mentality where he doesn’t let anything slide,” Bueckers said, per Landon Thomas. “He’s very detail-oriented, but he also communicates well with the players and with me, and how we want to run things. He takes player feedback. I mean, it starts as a coach-led team and how he sets the standard and the culture, but it’s up to the players to lead that as well.”
Bueckers added, “It gives you confidence in terms of everybody knowing their role [and] everybody knowing what it’s gonna take that night, and nobody stepping outside of what the Dallas Wings culture is because if that matters, he will hold us accountable.”
While Fernandez reminds Bueckers of Auriemma, Bueckers will have a piece of her UConn days with her in the Wings building. Dallas drafted Azzi Fudd with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft last Monday.
Bueckers and Fudd have known each other since they were teenagers with the USA Basketball junior team, and then they played together for four years at UConn, although Bueckers missed the entire 2022-23 season with a torn ACL.
The last time Bueckers and Fudd were teammates, UConn won the national championship game, so the ceiling is high for the new Wings tandem.
The Wings are trying to make the playoffs for the first time since 2023. Their 2026 season will begin in Indiana against Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston, and the Fever on May 9.