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Former UConn women’s basketball star Katie Lou Samuelson will miss the 2025 WNBA season after suffering a torn ACL.
Samuelson, who signed with the Seattle Storm ahead of the season, suffered the injury in practice on Thursday. The team announced the injury on Saturday.
Storm head coach Noelle Quinn addressed the injury ahead of the team’s preseason game against Connecticut Sunday.
“First of all, heart goes out to her,” Quinn told reporters. “The organization’s going to be supporting her through this journey. It hurts my heart a lot because she’s just a player that I feel like this was going to be a great year for her.
“She was having such a great camp– in great shape, her spirit was great, shooting the ball really well and just able to plug some holes that we have. Obviously, the deficiency from 3 was big, but defensively, the versatility. I knew that this was going to be a great year for her.”
Samuelson was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft. She’s played five seasons in the league, for Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Las Vegas and Indiana, averaging 5.9 points and 2.5 rebounds per game.
She missed the 2023 season while on maternity leave.
Samuelson is the second former Husky to be ruled out for the Storm’s season after an ACL injury. Nika Muhl, who was a second-round draft pick for Seattle last season, was ruled out two weeks ago after suffering a torn ACL while playing in Turkey during the WNBA offseason.
