For Minnesota Lynx winger Napheesa Collier, it was just like the closing of a chapter in history.

Since joining the WNBA as a rookie in 2019, Collier has watched the organization rejoice the tip of its most successful era in franchise history, an era that brought the Lynx 4 WNBA championships in seven seasons from 2011 to 2017 and featured several basketball legends and Hall of Fame talents who inspired a generation of future WNBA players.

In 2019, Collier saw the team retire Lindsay Whalen’s jersey. Seimone Augustus and Rebekkah Brunson had their jerseys retired in 2022. In 2023, it was Sylvia Fowles’ turn.

On August 24, the Lynx retired Maja Moore’s jersey in front of former players.

Since being named the 2019 Rookie of the Year, Collier has evolved from the long run face of the Lynx to the franchise player of the team, watching and learning from a dynastic era that established a winning culture in Minnesota and being handed the baton to proceed it.

This season, the Lynx (30-10) are doing just that. Behind an MVP-level season from Collier, who joins an elite class of WNBA performers, Minnesota is a title contender. As the Lynx prepare for a first-round playoff game as a No. 2 seed against the No. 7 Phoenix Mercury, they will likely be led by their “humble superstar” in Collier, who has set her sights on making a latest winning chapter in franchise history.

“When we retired (Maya’s jersey), I think that was the last of that generation and that era, so it feels like we’re making our own destiny now — and hopefully we can follow in their footsteps with a championship,” Collier said. “It definitely feels like a possibility for us this year.”

Before her jersey was retired on Aug. 24, Moore joined the Lynx commentary booth through the second quarter of the night’s contest between Minnesota and the Indiana Fever. When asked about what Collier did, Moore raved about Collier’s selfless nature, her desire to win and the way she supported her teammates.

“I love the spring in her step. She’s just solid. Consistent,” Moore said. “She just knows who she is and how to play.”

It took Collier a moment to work out who she was as knowledgeable within the WNBA. As she matured as a player, she learned more about herself. With such a high level of talent within the league, she was forced to discover a place to thrive on the WNBA level because what worked for her in college modified at the following level.

“Just finding what I’m best at, where I excel, where my value is on the team and what I can do to be successful,” Collier said. “I think over the years of doing that, I’ve found my space.”

That space, for Collier, saw her play at an MVP level as a two-way handyman for Minnesota. Collier finished the regular season averaging 20.4 points (fourth within the WNBA), 9.7 rebounds (third), 3.4 assists and 1.9 steals (second). Collier said she all the time knew she was able to that level and is glad it happened.

“I think the No. 4 position in this league is one of the best. To be considered for MVP at this level — it’s unbelievable,” Lynx point guard Kayla McBride said. “I think she’s just playing with a little more tenacity this year and the expectations she has for herself, a quiet confidence. I’m always impressed with how she handles that and how she carries it, and she’s definitely taken it to another level this year.”

Collier has set profession highs in every major statistical category this season. Collier has focused on developing her game this offseason, emphasizing mid-range and improving her 3-point shooting. Previously, Collier’s mid-range shooting volume was limited to 11.8 percent of her 2-point attempts. This 12 months, it’s 17.6 percent.

“I’m still working on the second one,” Collier joked.

Collier’s teammates praise her mentality and work ethic, her consistency and efficiency. Brunson likes Collier’s commitment to development.

“Phee is someone I think is a superstar in this league, but she’s very coachable. She’s become a better defender. She’s become a better perimeter shooter,” said Brunson, a Lynx assistant coach since 2020. “She knows she has her favorite moves, but she still listens to us about the crease she needs to make, the counterattacks she needs to make. She’s still developing.”

Another strength of Collier’s game is her toughness and sturdiness. She’s never really been off the court for the Lynx, which has been the case since she entered the league and averaged 33.3 minutes per game as a rookie. Collier is averaging 2.58 miles, according to Second Spectrum, probably the most of any player this season (minimum 15 games played).

“She’s so good, you never want to take her out of the game,” Brunson said. “She’s still working on her body, her physicality, making sure she’s stronger and more durable in the offseason. That’s very important. No matter how good you are, if you can’t stay on the field, if you can’t be available for your team, it doesn’t matter. She’s someone you know you can count on. I think that’s definitely the key to this team’s success.”

Collier’s miles should not only a measure of her minutes, but her activity in possession. On offense, she averages about 1.42 miles per game, second within the league behind Caitlin Clark (1.46, min. 15 games played this season).

“The hardest thing for me to guard is the guys that move around a lot,” Collier said. “I think just trying to be as active as possible is really tough for the defense to keep up with you and know what you’re doing. That’s definitely something I try to do.”

Collier can often touch every level of the sector on a single possession and be involved in multiple plays because the Lynx navigate to get one of the best looks. Of the 4 kinds of plays Second Spectrum tracks (handoffs, isolations, picks and post-ups), Collier and New York Liberty wing Breanna Stewart are the one players within the league with greater than 70 plays while playing all 4 plays. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve describes Collier’s brand of offense as “opportunistic.” Sometimes it’s Collier’s ability to exploit defenses which are out of position, other times it’s her flying in from the perimeter to grab an offensive rebound and finish a second-chance point.

In the WNBA’s superteam era, where accumulating star players has been the title-winning strategy for a lot of teams, from the New York Liberty within the East to the Seattle Storm and Phoenix Mercury within the West, the Lynx see themselves because the latter.

“When you beat a team like New York, that’s a superteam, and we’re not a superteam, we’re a collective,” Reeve said after the Lynx beat the Liberty on Sept. 15. Minnesota finished the regular season 2-1 against New York, excluding a Commissioner’s Cup final win over the Liberty in June. “They believe in each other and they believe in our collective. There’s more than one way to be successful.”

While on paper the team doesn’t have many Olympians or All-WNBA players, it’s not without star talent. The secret’s the team’s composition.

“It all comes down to what we can do as a team to win,” Collier said. “When you have a team like that — that really doesn’t care about individual accolades, just the team and winning — number one, it’s really hard to find in the WNBA, and number two, I think that’s definitely a recipe for greatness.”

The Lynx have considered one of the league’s best defenses. They rank second in defensive rating and steals and first in opponents’ field goal percentage (41%). The defense is anchored by Collier, a contender for this 12 months’s Defensive Player of the Year award. Collier’s defensive impact is clear in her ability to alter opponents’ shots. According to Second Spectrum, she is holding opponents to just 36.2 percent field goal shooting as a closest defender this season, the bottom within the league (amongst 114 players who had 100 field goal attempts against them as a closest defender). Collier ranks third within the league in steals per game and fourth in defensive rebounds (7.5 per game).

“Defensively, being able to take on the challenge of the great centers in our league — whatever we ask of her, she rises to the occasion,” McBride said. “I think she’s just playing with a little more tenacity and the expectations she has for herself this year.”

Minnesota’s offensive strength comes from balance. The Lynx are second in field goal percentage and the WNBA’s best 3-point shooting team. They have 4 players within the league’s top 10 in 3-point percentage, and forward Bridget Carleton and McBride lead the league amongst players with greater than 190 attempts. Courtney Williams is a number one mid-range threat and leads a team that leads the league in assists.

“I know a lot of times teams focus on me. If I have the ball, I open it up for someone else,” Collier said. “I can go into the center position and do something or pass it to the other side. We have so many threats on the team, it’s impossible to guard all of us.”

With Minnesota in search of its first championship since 2017, the last title won by the previous Lynx dynasty, Brunson said the message to Collier is obvious: No matter who you play, you could have to create your personal legacy.

“I don’t think Phee is thinking about how she fits into what we’ve done. She has her own goals and things she wants to accomplish with this team. I think the most important thing for her is that she understands that,” Brunson said. “Yes, there’s pride in wearing a Lynx uniform, but for her to be in the moment and know what she wants to carve out for herself and her teammates, I think she’s got a great head on her shoulders.”

Collier has emphasized her growth as a locker room leader yearly. She draws on what she learned from the team’s best players, whom she calls one of the best leaders she’s ever had. She’s taken the winning traits she saw playing alongside Augustus and Fowles and has been trying to embody them ever since. She’s grateful to have Brunson coaching her, an countless source of what it takes to win the massive game.

With Collier leading the way in which, we hope the Lynx team can gain that have first-hand.

“We have the talent to do it,” Collier said. “We just feel like we’re, hopefully, repeating history.”

Two latest national champions from all over the world HBCU Tennis: Alabama A&M women’s tennis team and Tennessee State University men’s tennis team won titles of their divisions.

According to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), each teams and 33 other HBCUs he competed within the twenty third Annual HBCU National Tennis Championships on the South Fulton Tennis Center in Georgia from September 14-16. After scoring 84 points, the Alabama A&M women’s team took first place, winning its first championship. In the boys’s division, Tennessee State University, which won the title last 12 months, repeated the feat, tying with Hampton University. Tie-breaking rules apply to head-to-head matches between schools, and Tennessee edged Hampton with three wins and two losses.

Second place went to the Hampton University women’s team with 73 points, followed closely by North Carolina Central University with 57 points.

The North Carolina Central men’s team finished third with 82 points.

On its website, the HBCU National Tennis Championship States that the tournament gives schools a likelihood to compete with other HBCUs with a likelihood to be considered the most effective within the country. The game is open to all HBCUs. Each 12 months, greater than 15 schools (over 30 men’s and ladies’s tennis programs) with as much as 250 players show as much as compete in singles and doubles play.

Tournament results:

Women’s Team Classification

• Alabama A&M University – 84
• Hampton University – 73
• North Carolina Central University – 57
• Morgan State University – 55
• Tennessee State University – 55
• Alabama State University – 54
• Jackson State University – 46
• Florida A&M University – 44
• Shaw University – 32
• Delaware State University – 30
• Xavier University of Louisiana – 29
• Tuskegee University – 21
• Albany State University – 15
• Alcorn State University – 11
• Clark-Atlanta University – 10
• Spring Hill High School – 8
• Benedict College – 8
• Southern University – 7
• Bethune Cookman University – 2
• LeMoyne-Owen College – 0

Men’s Team Classification

• Tennessee State University – 87 (H2H vs. ASU: 3-2)
• Alabama State University – 87
• North Carolina Central University – 82
• Jackson State University – 57
• Hampton University – 39
• Morgan State University – 39
• Alabama A&M University – 83
• Spring Hill – 23
• Tuskegee University – 21
• Shaw University – 17
• Alcorn State University – 15
• Benedict College – 12
• Xavier University of Louisiana – 10
• Southern University – 6
• LeMoyne Owen Collegeme – 0

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) oversees college tennis, supervising men’s and ladies’s collegiate competition in any respect levels – NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA, and Junior/Community College.

Las Vegas Aces A’ja Wilson has never minced words with regards to her quest for greatness. Being the top talent in today’s WNBA simply is not adequate for Wilson. Elite in this era is not enough.

In May 2023, Wilson, while a guest on the show, when asked by George what legacy she wanted to depart behind in the sport, replied that she wanted her name to be synonymous with all of girls’s basketball.

“When you talk about GOATs of the W, my name has to be there. At least in the top three. That’s my goal,” Wilson told George. “When you think about women’s basketball, when you think about the W, I want my name to be there. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to get there — whether it’s rings, whether it’s individual accolades — I want to be there in that category.”

It’s an announcement that few players with the talent and circumstances to attain could make. Those are former players like Sheryl Swoopes and Candace Parker, Maya Moore and Cynthia Cooper.

Since joining the league as the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, Wilson has steadily climbed the WNBA’s Mount Rushmore, starting with a Rookie of the Year award and an All-Star nomination. In 2020, she won her first MVP title and her first gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. In 2022, she added one other MVP title, Defensive Player of the Year honors and her first WNBA championship with Las Vegas. Wilson added a second straight title by winning one other Defensive Player of the Year award in 2023.

In her seven-year profession, Wilson has gone from basketball immortality to jumping. It’s gotten to the point where Wilson could achieve her Goliath goal before she turns 30.

In 2024, Wilson became the league’s first 1,000-point scorer, set the record for many points and rebounds in a season, set a brand new record for points per game — breaking the previous record that had stood for 18 years — and became the first player to average 25 points and 10 rebounds in a season. That doesn’t include her second Olympic gold medal in Paris, where she was named tournament MVP.

On Sunday, Wilson became the second player in WNBA history to be unanimously named MVP — a feat that hasn’t happened since 2006.

“I know how hard it is to be successful in this league, how hard it is to maintain your greatness in this league,” Wilson said Sunday after receiving the MVP trophy. “My first one was, ‘OK, I kind of have my name in the record books, in the history books of this league.’ To this day, I feel like I’ve fully settled into the league that I dreamed of playing in.”

When Atlanta Dream point guard Allisha Gray first saw Wilson play as a freshman at South Carolina, she knew Wilson was playing at a unique level. Gray met Wilson as her recruiting host at the University of North Carolina when Wilson was the No. 1 recruiter in the 2014 class. The two quickly became friends after a funny experience at a neighborhood carousel during Wilson’s stay.

“It was one of those UFOs that just spins around and you’re glued to the wall,” Gray said. “That ride blew us away, man.”

That moment brought the two closer together and they at the moment are best friends. Gray, who later moved to South Carolina and won a national championship with Wilson, texted her friend when she heard the news.

“I know her phone is blowing up,” Gray said before the Dream’s first-round playoff game against the New York Liberty on Sunday. “As a best friend, I’m really happy with her. I’ve all the time believed in her and I knew she could do it, it’s only a matter of whether she believes in herself — and she does.

“She is the best player in the world.”

This season, Wilson became the first player to guide the league in points, rebounds and blocks in a single season. It was a dominant performance that spanned the entire league. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Wilson has averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds against six opponents this yr. Before this season, no player in WNBA history had averaged the same numbers against greater than two different opponents in a single season.

Throughout the yr, Wilson’s pursuit of greatness was measured by the performance of other great men whom she equaled or surpassed.

The single-season points-per-game record was originally set by Phoenix Mercury point guard Diana Taurasi. Wilson and Parker are the only players to record at the least 25 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 blocks in a single game, which Wilson did against Atlanta on August 30. Wilson’s single-season rebounding record broke the record set by Sylvia Fowles (Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese also broke Fowles’ record that season). Wilson became the second player in WNBA history after Yolanda Griffith (1999) to complete in the league’s top five in points, rebounds, blocks, and steals per game. Wilson has scored 40 points twice this season, giving her 4 profession 40-point games, tying Taurasi and Breanna Stewart for the most points in WNBA history. With her third MVP title, she joins Lauren Jackson, Lisa Leslie and Swoopes as the only players to perform this feat.

“When you have players of that caliber playing now, you appreciate it. One day she won’t be here,” Las Vegas Aces guard Alysha Clark said Sept. 11. “She’ll retire and move on with her life, and people will admire what she did. Marvel at it now. It’s pretty damn impressive.”

Wilson matches that energy off the field as well.

In February, her first book, , was published and became a bestseller. In April, she was named considered one of the magazine’s 100 most influential people. In May, Nike announced that Wilson would receive her own signed shoe, making her the first black female WNBA player to have a signed shoe since Parker in 2010 and the first black woman since Swoopes in 2002 to have a signed Nike basketball shoe. In July, 2K Sports announced that Wilson would seem in the NBA 2K25 All-Star and WNBA editions of the popular video game.

For Gray, Wilson’s recognition is something she’s been waiting for for a very long time. While Wilson’s performances and resume could have warranted the amount of attention she’s currently receiving, Gray said Wilson has never complained earlier in her profession.

“A’ja, she’s a very humble person. What’s hers is hers. We know what she deserves, but she won’t cry and complain – she just shows what she does,” Gray said. “She’s not conceited, she’s not arrogant, what’s hers is hers and that’s why she’s always blessed. She always does everything right.”

A yr ago, Wilson finished third in considered one of the tightest MVP races the league has ever seen. The final vote tally revealed Wilson received the fourth-place votewhich could have affected her placement in the race. Wilson said she “pushed” for the vote early on. During the Aces’ 2023 championship parade, Wilson, the reigning Finals MVP, wore a T-shirt that referenced her fourth-place finish and thanked the voter during her speech. But she said in February that she had decided to let the situation go.

“I had this epiphany moment where I just thought, ‘You know what, get my feelings out there. Put in the work, A’ja. Make sure people have no doubts about who you are and who you want to be in this league,’” Wilson said. “I think that was a turning point for me.”

Wilson ended her answer by saying that she didn’t really need to speak about the fourth-place vote anymore. She gestured to the silver MVP trophy that sat on the podium next to her, tapping the base just a few times as she finished.

“Because we are of one mind.”