Angel Sky-high to land with rival in Chicago
Angel Reese, the face of LSU’s championship run a year ago, will be starting her WNBA career with the Chicago Sky under a face familiar to Kim Mulkey, Reese’s coach with the Tigers. Reese, the No. 7 pick of the draft, will have an added sense of comfort under new head coach and Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon, who played at Louisiana Tech in 1984, when Mulkey was starting there as an assistant coach.
“My conversations were great with T Spoon. As you know, she was coached by coach Mulkey, so I kind of thought maybe I’ll go there,” Reese said. “Knowing, like, the conversations were so good and she felt like a mother to me. Being able to be a black woman and as a head coach, and everything she’s done at the NBA level, I just knew everything they were bringing to the table.”
With fans in attendance for the first time in league history — about 1,000 strong Monday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music — Reese accepted her Sky jersey alongside league commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
“My mom was crying before the show even started, so it started there,” Reese said. “Then my brother was, like, agitating me, I bet you $100 that you cry, I bet you $100 that you cry. He kind of got me, too. And I had a great conversation, she was saying, with Chicago, so I kind of knew— if it wasn’t the Mystics [at No. 6], I knew it was going to be Chicago that was going to be calling me home.”
Reese is thankful to be joining forces with former rival Kamilla Cardoso — the No. 3 overall pick — in Chicago after playing against one another in college and high school.
“My first time playing Kamilla was on one of the biggest stages in my life when she played for Hamilton Heights [Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn.] and I played for St. Frances [Academy in Baltimore] in high school and we battled,” Reese said. “Now, being able to be teammates is going to be amazing. I actually talked to her earlier, was congratulating her. I know she came off an amazing run, an amazing college career. I’m looking forward to playing with her in practice and in games, just bouncing off of each other. So I’m excited for this.”
Reese helped propel the Lady Tigers to a 31-6 season after winning the program’s first national championship the previous season. This year, the Tigers fell short in an Elite Eight meeting with Caitlin Clark and Iowa, losing 94-87.
In her final college game, she tallied 17 points and 20 rebounds in 36 minutes before fouling out with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter. Reese averaged 18.6 points per game and 13.4 rebounds, second in Divison I, this past season.