WNBA All-Star Nod Insufficient As Paige Bueckers Fails To Win Prestigious Award Caitlin Clark Received

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There was something almost cinematic in Paige Bueckers’ final college season—a nationally televised 40‑point explosion, a UConn national title, and shooting splits that broke the 50/40/90 club. She not only swept every major player‑of‑the‑year honor but also won the Honda Sport Award for basketball, making her look like a lock for the all‑sports Honda Cup, just as Caitlin Clark had been twice before. Yet, when the 2025 CWSA board announced its decision, the crown went elsewhere.

It all comes up with the announcement of the winner for the 2025 Collegiate Women’s Sports Honda Cup. For nearly half a century, the Honda Sport Award has been the gold standard for recognizing top-tier female athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports. Each winner is crowned “the best of the best” and automatically advances as a finalist for the big one. And when it came to predicting this year’s winner, Paige Bueckers’ name was hardly a surprise. And why not? She didn’t just help steer UConn to its 12th national championship; she left her name all over the record books while doing it—with 2,439 career points, the highest scoring average in program history, and the most NCAA tournament points by any Husky.

Yet, while she was among the nominees, she wasn’t the winner of the award as Gretchen Walsh took the title. But of course, Walsh deserved it, too.

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Just consider: she’s a 25-time NCAA champion over four seasons, with 9 individual and 16 relay titles. She’s even set NCAA, American, and U.S. Open records in the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly categories in swimming. And yes, there’s more. She broke 11 world records (9 individual, 2 relay) at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, also earned Best Female Swimmer honors, and set long-course world records in the 100 Butterfly (55.18) while contributing to 4×100 Medley Relay records at the 2024 U.S. Trials.

Well, with the award, Walsh joined basketball star Dawn Staley, who won the Honda Cup in 1991 as the second student athlete to attain the title from Virginia. So, you know the kind of phenom Walsh is and how she’s outshone Paige, at least in terms of awards.

Meanwhile, comparisons between Bueckers and Caitlin Clark continue to swirl. After all, Clark didn’t just win the Cup—she won it back-to-back. For three straight years, basketball had a grip on the trophy: first Aliyah Boston in 2022, then Clark in 2023 and 2024. So when Bueckers, also a No. 1 overall pick, entered the mix, many assumed she’d keep the streak alive. But that’s not how the script played out.

And while the media might lean hard into the rivalry angle, Bueckers won’t take the bait. In a prior interview, she made it clear she doesn’t see herself in competition with Clark: “Running my own race… I don’t think me and Caitlin play at all alike… Those comparisons are just media‑driven, narrative‑driven.”  Still, the Honda Cup snub hasn’t slowed her roll. In fact, Bueckers is already carving out new milestones—just not the ones people expected.