Liberty Will Face Paige Bueckers After Rest Absence
The Monday night showdown between the New York Liberty and Dallas Wings will have a little bite to it with the presence of a former UConn Husky.
North Texas sensation Paige Bueckers is not on the injury report for the Liberty's visit to College Park Center, officially destined to face the Liberty for the first time in her professional career (8 p.m. ET, ESPN). Bueckers' fantastic freshman season was interrupted by load management, as she sat out of Sunday's Wings game against the Las Vegas Aces due to rest.
Dallas (7-19) is in the midst of a packed stretch that head coach Chris Koclanes called "insane" (h/t Joey Mistretta of ClutchPoints): Monday's game is the middle part of a five-game-in-eight-day stretch, though it's also part of a four-part homestretch that began with a 106-80 defeat to the Aces.
Bueckers, the top pick of the most recent WNBA Draft, has lived up to the hype and then some, averaging 18.1 points, 5.6 assists, and 1.8 steals in her first 20 showings.
That leads all first-year WNBA reps and she was also one of three rookies to appear in the WNBA All-Star Game, playing for a team captained and curated by fellow UConn alumna Napheesa Collier, who also chose another former Husky in Liberty star Breanna Stewart, who will not play on Monday due to a leg injury.
Monday's meeting will be the first of three meetings between the Liberty and Wings over the next two weeks: Bueckers will make her Barclays Center debut next Tuesday, Aug. 5, and another showdown in Arlington awaits three nights later.
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.