WNBA Draft 2016 will be held on April 14 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. The Seattle Storm will be on the clock with the No. 1 overall selection for the second consecutive year. As the draft nears, see below for some of the buzz surrounding the highly anticipated Draft and UConn star Breanna Stewart, the consensus No. 1 pick.
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NY Times: Breanna Stewart, UConn’s Wow Factor
With Auriemma’s standard roster of multipositional excellence beside her, Stewart has, in her time at Connecticut, indisputably qualified as one of those rare raise-the-bar talents. She has occasionally been heralded by pundits as potentially the best female player ever.
“And if you want to be considered that good, you’ve got to have those wow moments — in games, in practices,” Auriemma said. “Every day, Michael Jordan did something that made you say, What?”
That is what Auriemma believes Stewart is capable of on the women’s scale of athletic enhancement.
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Newsday: Breanna Stewart Likely to Be Next WNBA Star
And, more importantly to fans of the sport, Stewart is on the precipice of becoming a transformative player in the women’s game, someone with all the tools, talent and smarts to push the WNBA to the next level after Seattle takes her with its No. 1 pick this spring.
That, of course, is a lot to put on anyone, even a player with a 7-foot wingspan who routinely dunks in practice and often is compared to the NBA’s Kevin Durant. Yet it’s hard not to be wowed by what Stewart brings to the table. Even Durant himself is a big fan of her game.
“For a girl that tall, she can do a lot with the basketball,” Durant told reporters last month when he was in New York with the Thunder to play the Knicks. “She’s very skilled. She can shoot, she can pass, she can rebound, she can run, she can jump. So there’s something I haven’t seen — in the women’s game or otherwise — in a long time. I’m a big fan, a huge fan.”
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Associated Press: Breanna Stewart Gets Brief Glimpse of Basketball Future
“It was pretty easy,” Geno Auriemma said of the decision to play the only college athlete at camp. “They said, ‘We’re having training camp so you’re trying to make the team and that means you have to try out. This is an opportunity for you to play. This is part of your future.’ She looked great. She just feels right at home, feels comfortable. The initial star-struck jitters are kind of gone.”
Stewart fit in smoothly with the 15 other players in camp. She finished off baskets on the break and blocked shots on defense. She looked a lot more comfortable than her first experience with the national team. Stewart was part of the world championship squad that won a gold medal in 2014, but she didn’t really play many minutes. She also took part in the team’s European tour last fall.
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ESPN: WNBA Draft to Be Televised on ESPN 2, ESPNU
The first round of the draft will be televised live on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. ET, and second- and third-round coverage will continue on ESPNU at 8. The draft will also be available on WatchESPN.
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SB Nation: Kobe Can’t Stop Talking About Rachel Banham
Ever since professing her love of the Black Mamba in an interview with the Big Ten Network, [Minnesota senior Rachel] Banham has gained Kobe as a big fan and source of advice and support.
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Hartford Courant: Moriah Jefferson Takes in USAB Camp
While USA Basketball’s three-day camp was being run on campus this week, UConn’s players frequently stopped by to watch the greatest players in the world do their thing.
For some, it may have been strictly for pleasure. But for Moriah Jefferson, it was strictly business.
“I was really watching the guards,” Jefferson said. “And I noticed how confident they were in their play. I noticed they really didn’t shoot the ball a lot. They were primarily telling the other players where to go.
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The State: Tiffany Mitchell Helps Make South Carolina Elite
Ms. Mitchell is a two-time SEC player of the year. She was a first-team All-American last season and a third-team All-American the year before. She won the Dawn Staley Award as the nation’s best guard last season (more on Ms. Staley later). Ms. Mitchell is the first Gamecock to be named finalist for all three national player of the year awards: the Naismith Trophy, Wooden Award and Wade Trophy.
Maybe more impressive than those awards is how often Ms. Mitchell has delivered for the Gamecocks in the clutch. Time after time, she has spurred South Carolina to victory when the game was close late.
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