Connecticut Sun Star Saniya Rivers’ Jersey Number Retired at Ashley High

It hasn’t been that long since Saniya Rivers played her high school basketball at Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C. But no one will wear her number again.

In a ceremony on Friday, Rivers was on hand to see her No. 22 at Ashley High retired and hung in the rafters of her old high school.

She turned her career at Ashley into a selection as the 2021 Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year, a scholarship and all-ACC career at NC State and the No. 8 overall selection in the 2025 WNBA Draft to the Connecticut Sun.

In just five years, she’s gone from high school star to emerging professional star on the court. That quick rise wasn’t lost on Rivers.

“It really just hit me this morning what was going on, like my jersey is being retired,” Rivers said to the Wilmington Star-News. “It’s a big deal, and I think I downplayed it a little bit, but once I stepped in, all my family is here, people were coming up taking pictures, it’s just like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.”

Rivers’ first season ensured that she’ll be part of the core of the franchise for the next few seasons. She’s all but certain to be protected from the WNBA expansion draft.

She averaged averaging 8.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.5 steals per game. She also averaged nearly one block per game. She took on a starting role midway through the season for the Sun, who won just 11 games. During the campaign, she finished with 100 stocks (62 steals and 38 blocks), making her one of seven players to hit the mark in the WNBA in 2025.

In one game against the Indiana Fever, she set a career high with five blocks, making her the third Sun player in history to reach at least five blocks in a game. She also had a season that put her with one of the best players in WNBA history. She had 371 points, 118 rebounds, 113 assists and 62 steals. She was the first rookie in the league to post at least 370 points, 115 rebounds, 110 assists and 60 steals in 23 years. The last rookie to do it was Tamika Catchings in 2002.

She did all of this in a year in which she lost her mother, Dee Dee Toon Rivers, who died of congestive heart failure just before the start of the season. Rivers returned to Wilmington in the offseason to host the inaugural Dee Dee Toon Rivers UNCW luncheon, will will be used to raise money for charity in her mother’s name. Dee Dee played basketball at UNCW.

Rivers and the rest of the players in the WNBA are waiting for the league and the players’ association to come to an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement. A second extension allows the sides to negotiate well into January.