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Mechelle VoepelESPN.com
The Dallas Wings fielded Texas player Charli Collier on Thursday with the No. 1 pick in the 2021 WNBA Series.
Collier is the first Longhorns player to be the WNBA’s best pick and the second of the Big 12, after Baylor center Brittney Griner in 2013.
The Wings selected another post player, Awak Kuier from Finland, with the number 2. The 6-foot-5 Kuier is the sixth international player who did not play colleagues, who was in the top-five of the WNBA Series.
For the second season in a row, the three-round concept is virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who announced the choice of her home last season, was in an ESPN studio this year.
The 6-foot-5 Collier averaged 19 points and 11.3 rebounds per game, while shooting 51.1% of the field for the 21-10 Longhorns, which advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight. Collier is a junior who is eligible for the draft because she turns 22 this calendar year.
She will play for a pro team in her native Texas; she is from Mont Belvieu in the greater Houston area.
“My heart is racing now because I worked so hard for this,” Collier told Holly Rowe of ESPN. “It’s a game I love, I deserve to be here and I’m built for it. It’s my moment.”
Collier is the third true junior to win the no. 1 was selected after Notre Dame guard Jewell Loyd in 2015 and Jackie Young in 2019. Tennessee’s Candace Parker was a junior in contention when she won 2008 no. 1 was, but she had been in school for four years, after transferring her first season in 2004-’05.
Kuier (19) plays professionally for Ragusa in Italy, where she averaged 8.9 points and 6.8 rebounds per game this season. She only turns 20 on August 20. Kuier was born in Cairo after her parents fled war-torn South Sudan. When she was 2 years old, her family emigrated to Finland.
Dallas won 8-14 and missed the playoff game in ninth place in Bradenton, Florida, last year’s shortened season. Like the rest of the WNBA teams, the Wings will be in their home market again this season, playing at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas.
Vickie Johnson is in her first season as coach of the Wings; she was previously a head coach in San Antonio and played 13 seasons in the WNBA.
In Collier and Kuier, Johnson and the Wings gets two players with a great size and points ability. The Wings have three first picks and four of the top 13, while the Los Angeles Sparks have two in the first round and five overall.
The Atlanta Dream has NCAA Tournament star Aari McDonald at no. 3 achieved. The guard led Arizona to the national championship game and becomes the first Wildcat player to participate in the first round of the WNBA Series.