Arlington, Texas — Napheesa Collier scored 34 points, spoiling fellow UConn alum Paige Bueckers’ WNBA debut and leading the Minnesota Lynx to a 99-84 win over the Dallas Wings in both teams’ season openers on Friday night.
Bueckers scored the Wings’ first points of the season, and the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft finished with ten in front of an announced sellout crowd at the 7,000-seat arena on the Texas-Arlington campus.
Collier began a 13-1 run midway through the third quarter with a close basket and finished it with a free throw for the Lynx, who lost to the New York Liberty in the WNBA Finals last year.
Courtney Williams had 25 points and nine assists, while Jessica Shepard had 15 points and eight rebounds for Minnesota.
Arike Ogunbowale, an All-Star guard, led Dallas with 16 points. DiJonai Carrington, who was acquired from the Connecticut Sun in an offseason trade as part of a roster overhaul after the Wings failed to make the playoffs in 2024, scored 15 points.
Bueckers opened the scoring with a nifty crossover move that saw her drive the lane, miss the runner, grab the rebound, and hit the putback. Her first assist came on Carrington’s 3-pointer, which put Dallas ahead 51-50 in the second half.
The first half was filled with fouls, including one on Bueckers when she was forced to play post defense against Collier. Before Collier made both free throws following a timeout, she and Bueckers had a friendly conversation at the line.
Before halftime, the teams combined for 30 free throws, and the game was tied at 46 after Ogunbowale made two with four seconds left and Carrington stole the inbound pass before feeding Maddy Siegrist for a layup with 1.2 seconds remaining.
Bueckers missed both of her three-point attempts and finished 3 of 10 with seven rebounds and two assists.