The WNBA season is fast approaching, with the league’s 29th Draft just two weeks away on April 14th in New York. Last season’s draft picks Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, Rickea Jackson, and of course Rookie of the YearCaitlin Clark showed flashes of what they can do this season. Will the New York Liberty repeat as champions or will reigning MVP A’ja Wilson win her third championship? Maybe the league’s first expansion team in 17 years, the Golden State Valkyries, will pull off an upset, or maybe Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese will establish themselves as superstars by winning their first championship. A lot can happen, but the only thing that is certain is that Paige Bueckers, who continued her path to the National Championship with UConn, will be the first overall pick and will be playing in Dallas in a few months.
Van Lith And Angel Reese Together Again
Yesterday, Bueckers reached her third consecutive 30-plus point game in March Madness, and with some of those points, she moved into third place on the Huskies’ all-time WBB scoring list behind Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart. While Bueckers is on her way to her first national championship and the first for UConn since 2016, another player ended her career in the NCAAW after being eliminated from the tournament and is now heading to the next draft; that player is TCU guard Hailey Van Lith.
Van Lith, who is the first player in history to reach the Elite Eight round with three different teams and also led TCU to its first-ever Elite Eight appearance, was eliminated with the Horned Frogs by the No. 1 Texas Longhorns, ending her incredible five-year collegiate career. But her season clearly caught the attention of WNBA teams, and she positioned herself as a first-round pick after entering the season projected as a second-round pick. Now, Hailey could reunite with former teammate Angel Reese in Chicago, as the Sky hold the No. 10 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft and fans are pushing hard for the team to reunite Angel Reese with a former LSU Tigers teammate.
Reese and Van Lith played together at LSU during the 2023-24 college basketball season, where they were eliminated in the Elite Eight round by Caitlin Clark and Iowa. Reese herself shared the initials “HVL” on X when Van Lith eliminated Notre Dame, giving a great game with 26 points, 9 rebounds and dished out 4 assists. Pairing a player with Hailey’s assisting ability with the giants Reese and Cardoso will give the Sky team plenty of opportunities, and their new coach Tyler Marsh, who was an assistant coach with the Las Vegas Aces, played a pivotal role in the Aces’ back-to-back championship runs.
Chicago Sky Out for Revenge Next Season
The coach mentioned in his first press conference that the team will base its game on Cardoso and Reese, the twin towers. If you include HVL in the equation, it will give her enough space to shoot from long range, besides being able to assist them as the great point guard she is. Reese’s rookie season was cut short by injury, but she still averaged an impressive double-double of 13.6 points and 13.1 rebounds per game, leading the league in rebounding. Her 13.1 boards per game was the highest average in WNBA history, and she set a single-season record with 446 rebounds, surpassing Sylvia Fowles’ previous mark of 404.
In any other season, she might have won the Rookie of the Year award, but she had to “fight” Caitlin Clark, who had been in a losing battle for that award since draft day, and the injury combined with the Sky’s failure to make the playoffs left her without a chance. Surely she will have that thorn in her side for not reaching her goals, and this year she will try by all means to make the playoffs and compete until the end of the season. The new big three with Cardos and HVL could be something to talk about for years to come if the Sky decide to draft Van Lith, which we will know in a few weeks.
Read the full article here
