Here are the latest announcements and developments from around women’s basketball:
Fab four headlines WBHOF Class of 2025
During halftime of Friday evening’s game between No. 2 UConn and No. 14 North Carolina, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2025 was revealed—and it’s a good one.
The quartet of Alanna Beard, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Cappie Pondexter will be inducted on June 14 at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville. Alongside the players, coaches Lucille Kyvallos, former head coach at West Chester State College in Pennsylvania and Queens College in New York, and Mark Campbell, former head coach at Union University in Tennessee, will be inducted, as will Danielle Donehew, the executive director of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
The resumes of Beard, Bird, Fowles and Pondexter are well known, and too long to list in detail. But, here’s a quick reminder of why the foursome is headed into the Hall:
Alana Beard
Winner of multiple national player of the honors as a senior at Duke, Beard was a member of the 2016 WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks. Across a 14-year WNBA career with the Washington Mystics and Sparks, she was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, nine-time All-Defensive honoree and four-time All-Star.
BREAKING: Alana Beard named to Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame 2025 Class.
Career Highlights:3x All-American2x NCAA Final Four3x ACC POY4x All-ACC First Team8x ACC Champion2004 Wooden Award Winner4x WNBA All-Star2x WNBA DPOY2016 WNBA ChampionDuke Athletics Hall of Fame pic.twitter.com/zaJt0EarTq
— Duke Women’s Basketball (@DukeWBB) November 16, 2024
Storm staff under investigation
On Friday night, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Annie Constabile reported that the Seattle Storm coaching staff is under investigation for the alleged mistreatment of players. Noelle Quinn has served as the team’s head coach since 2021. Her assistants for the 2024 season were Perry Huang, who had been with Quinn since 2021 (and now is an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers’ G League team), Ebony Hoffman, a former WNBA player who has been on the staff since 2022, and Pokey Chatman, former head coach of the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever who also has been on staff since 2022. Chatman has been the organization’s associate general manager since 2023 as well.
Unrivaled shares more details
Mark your calendars for Nov. 20. That’s when Unrivaled is set to reveal the rosters for its six clubs: Mist Basketball Club, Laces Basketball Club, Lunar Owls Basketball Club, Vinyl Basketball Club, Rose Basketball Club and Phantom Basketball Club. Tickets also will go on sale on Nov. 20.
On Friday, we learned the six coaches who will lead the 3×3 clubs: Phil Handy, Adam Harrington, Nola Henry, DJ Sackmann, Andrew Wade and Teresa Weatherspoon.
