Paige Bueckers has had busy week since helping UConn win national championship

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Paige Bueckers has had busy week since helping UConn win national championship

2025-04-14 10:49 Last Updated At：10:51

NEW YORK (AP) — It's been a whirlwind week for Paige Bueckers since she won her first national championship with UConn.

The Huskies star player has been going back and forth between Connecticut and New York doing morning and night time talk show appearances. Bueckers stopped by “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and interrupted his monologue to let him hold the national championship trophy on Wednesday night.

Later in the week she came back to New York for WNBA rookie orientation before finally going back to Connecticut for a parade to celebrate the school's 12th NCAA title they won in Tampa, Florida.

Bueckers also signed a three-year deal with Unrivaled, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no official announcement had been made. Bueckers had a name, image and likeness deal with the 3-on-3 league in its inaugural year this past winter that gave her equity in the league.

Her first-year salary for the 10-week Unrivaled season will be more than what she would make in her four-year rookie WNBA contract. The average salary at Unrivaled was more than $220,000 and her four-year WNBA deal's base salary would be just under $350,000.

ESPN first reported the Unrivaled deal.

Bueckers has been enjoying the moment since the storybook ending to her college career. Bueckers' life won't slow down after Monday night when she's expected to be taken No. 1 overall by the Dallas Wings at the WNBA draft.

Bueckers will be headed to Texas to do appearances and get ready for training camp that begins on April 27. She'll be in the spotlight trying to revitalize the Dallas franchise. Her No. 5 jersey is expected to be one of the top sellers in the WNBA this upcoming season.

The 23-year-old guard has been in the spotlight since her high school days in Minnesota. She's been one of the most popular players ever since she stepped foot in Storrs, Connecticut, in 2021.

Bueckers burst on to the season as a freshman in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. She became the first player ever to earn AP Player of the Year honors in her first year. Then injuries hampered her next two years before she finally was healthy again.

“It was a journey of resilience, of overcoming adversity,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world just because it became such a beautiful story and a remarkable journey of ups and downs, highs and lows, of keeping the faith, of working extremely hard, and I really wouldn’t trade it.”

Her name, image and likeness valuations are among the top for women’s basketball players. She has deals with major sponsors Nike, Gatorade, Verizon and Dunkin’ Donuts. She added Ally Financial last week.

It's something that none of the previous UConn greats such as Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart had when they entered the WNBA.

On the court, Bueckers has been one of the most efficient players in college basketball during her time at UConn. She finished her career shooting over 53% from the field, 42% from behind the 3-point line and 85% from the free throw line.

“It’s going to be fun to watch her because I expect a similar efficiency from her at the pro level,” ESPN analyst Lobo said. "I actually think it will be good if her efficiency is down a little bit because that means she’s hunting shots more, which is kind of what she has the ability to do and what we saw especially throughout the course of the Big East and NCAA Tournaments.

“But she’s a special talent who can just get where she wants to get and once she gets there, hit her shots at a ridiculously high efficiency.”

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Blackwell scores 17:46 into OT as Stars beat Avalanche 4-3 to even 1st-round NHL playoffs series 1-1

2025-04-22 13:44 Last Updated At：13:51

DALLAS (AP) — Colin Blackwell scored 17:46 into overtime and the Dallas Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 on Monday night in Game 2 to even up their first-round Western Conference series.

Blackwell initially took a shot that ricocheted off teammate Sam Steel and Avs defenseman Samuel Girard in front of the net. But with the puck rolling loose on the ice, the fourth-line forward circled around and knocked it in for the winner.

“It’s been a long season, and not playing the first game, stuff like that, just kind of been in and out of the lineup toward the end here,” Blackwell said. “I always felt my game’s kinda built for the playoffs and stuff along those lines. I love rising to the occasion and playing in moments like this.”

Tyler Seguin, Thomas Harley and Evgenii Dadonov also had goals for Dallas, which avoided losing the first two games in its opening-round series for the second year in a row. The Stars did open with their eighth consecutive Game 1 loss since 2022, after going into this postseason with a seven-game losing streak (0-5-2).

Colorado had finished the final 1:26 of regulation and first 34 seconds of overtime on a power play after a hooking penalty against Mikko Rantenen, who the Avalanche traded on Jan. 24 to Carolina in the East, where he played only 13 games before getting traded March 7 back to the Central Division to Dallas and getting a new $96 million, eight-year contract.

Stars goalie Jake Oettinger stopped 34 shots. Mackenzie Blackwood had 35 saves in his second career playoff game, but the final shot went off his left shoulder.

Nathan MacKinnon scored on a power play for his third goal in this series for the Avalanche, and his 51st in the NHL playoffs. Jack Drury and Logan O’Connor also scored.

The series switches to Denver for Game 3 on Wednesday night, when there is a chance that Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog could play for the first time in nearly three years. His last game was June 26, 2022, when they beat Tampa Bay 2-1 in Game 6 to clinch the Stanley Cup, before a chronic right knee injury that led to two surgeries and multiple comeback attempts.

Landeskog was activated off injured reserve early Monday, and was the first Colorado skater to take the ice for pregame warmups. But he was a scratch for the game.

O’Connor had a go-ahead goal in the final minute of the second period with Mason Marchment draped around him for a 3-2 lead, not long after the Stars used a timeout in hopes of taking advantage of a short two-man advantage but coming up empty on nearly four minutes on the power play.

Dallas took an advantage with 4:48 left in the second period, and almost immediately Blackwood made a sliding kick save to deny Marchment. There was only seven seconds left on power play when Colorado got another penalty, and Stars coach Pete DeBoer called timeout.

But Charlie Coyle won the ensuing faceoff for the Avs against Wyatt Johnston, and Devon Toews sent the puck to the other end of the ice to quickly erase the two-man advantage.

Harley gave Dallas its first lead in the series 3:40 in the second period, but that lasted only 62 seconds before Drury’s goal tied the game at 2 with Rantanen right by him. Drury came to Colorado from Carolina as part of the initial trade that sent Rantanen to the Hurricanes.

The Stars matched MacKinnon’s goal with a power play in the final minute of the first period. Captain Jamie Benn skated behind the net, passed to Marchment in the middle of the right circle before he pushed the puck across to Seguin in the opposite circle for the slap shot.

Seguin was in only his third game since missing 58 games over 4 1/2 months because of left hip surgery. He returned for the regular season finale last Wednesday, and hadn't scored since the day after Thanksgiving.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl