Dallas Wings select player that’s decided the last two national championships
The Dallas Wings selected Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale with the fifth overall pick during Wednesday’s WNBA draft.
Dallas also drafted Iowa’s Megan Gustafson at No. 17, UCLA’s Kennedy Burke at No. 22 and UC-Davis’ Morgan Bertsch at No. 29.
“Arike Ogunbowale is one of the premier scorers in college basketball,” Dallas Wings President and CEO Greg Bibb said in a press release. “She’s obviously a clutch shooter. She loves to have the ball in her hands when the game is on the line. She can also create her own shot and she’s exceptional in transition.”
The Wings enter their fourth season in Arlington with games at UTA’s College Park Center. Dallas is coming off back-to-back playoff appearances and look to push further during the 2019 season with head coach Brian Agler.
Ogunbowale was a four-year letter winner for the Irish and passed Dallas’ own Skylar Diggins-Smith this season to become the program’s all-time leading scorer. The 2018 and 2019 All-American was also first team All-ACC.
Her buzzer-beating shot helped Notre Dame win the 2018 national championship over Mississippi State.
Ogunbowale averaged 17.6 points and 2.4 assists per game, and shot 44 percent from the field in her career.
She scored 31 points during this season’s national championship against Baylor, second most points in championship game history, but missed a key free throw late which gave the Bears a 82-81 victory.
“We’ve had a pretty good track record with Notre Dame guards, so I’m excited. I think she’s going to do really well for us,” Bibb said.
Gustafson, a 6-foot-3 center, was the 2019 Citizen Naismith Trophy Award winner, given to the best player in college basketball, and this season she became one of only four NCAA Women’s Basketball players to score 1,000 points in a single-season.
She topped the rankings in numerous categories this year including points per game (27.9) and field goal percentage (69.6). She leaves Iowa as the Hawkeye’s all-time leading scorer (women’s and men’s programs) with 2,804 points.
Burke is one of only four Bruins to have scored 1,000 points, grab 500 rebounds and tally 100 blocks in program history.
Bertsch was fourth in the nation with 23.6 points per game. She was also named the MVP of the conference tournament.
Ogunbowale was one of five Irish to be drafted on Wednesday. Jackie Young was No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Aces.
Southlake Carroll’s Kennedy Leonard (Colorado) went undrafted. She was projected to go No. 26 to New York.
