UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers named to Ann Meyers Drysdale Award top 10
UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers was announced Tuesday as one of 10 finalists for the 2024 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, given annually to the top shooting guard in Division I.
Bueckers wasted no time returning to form after missing all of 2022-23 with a torn ACL. The redshirt junior leading the No. 8 Huskies in scoring, averaging 19.8 points per game plus 4.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.3 steals and a block per game. She has amassed 11 games scoring at least 20 points and two with more than 30. Bueckers also ranks second nationally with a 56.5% field goal percentage and fifth from 3-point range shooting 47.6%.
The Ann Meyers Drysdale Award is named for the UCLA legend, who became the first woman in NCAA history to receive a four-year athletic scholarship. Meyers Drysdale was also the first woman to sign a contract with an NBA team, the Indiana Pacers, in 1979.
The award has been given by the Basketball Hall of Fame since 2018, and former South Carolina star Zia Cooke was the 2023 winner. UConn’s last — and only — winner was Christyn Williams in 2022. Bueckers previously won the Hall of Fame’s Nancy Lieberman Award for the nation’s best point guard in 2021, the same season that she was named Naismith National Player of the Year.
Other finalists for this year’s Ann Meyers Drysdale Award include UCLA’s Charisma Osborne, NC State’s Saniya Rivers and USC freshman JuJu Watkins. UConn lost to both UCLA and NC State in November, but the Huskies are currently in the midst of a 12-game winning streak with nine straight victories by at least 20 points. UConn (16-3, 8-0) faces Big East rival Marquette (15-3, 4-3) in Milwaukee on Tuesday (7 p.m., SNY).
