The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lowkey Collier typically efficient in WNBA
UNCASVILLE — She started when she was 4 and didn’t give up the sport until she was 15. We’re talking soccer here. Not hoops.
“Yeah, I was a goalie,” Napheesa Collier said Saturday before she made her Connecticut homecoming in the Minnesota Lynx’s 7471 victory over the Sun. Were you any good?
“I thought I was,” Collier said. Of course she was. She’s good at nearly everything.
On a weekend when women’s sports fans are going crazy over the U.S. women’s soccer team, when Phoenix Mercury players were all over social media wearing USWNT swag and the Sun strutted into Mohegan Sun doing the same, here was Napheesa. Typically restrained.
Hey, she’s a goalkeeper.
No, not like Hope Solo, hyped and controversial.
A goalkeeper like Alyssa Naeher, Connecticut’s reserved contribution to this historical World Cup weekend in France. Naeher loves to do crossword puzzles. If 24 across was Napheesa Collier, the seven letter answer would be “unfazed.”
“We’re really proud of the women’s team and what they’re doing,” Collier said. “They’ve been awesome.”
She didn’t add that it has been a team function the past few games to gather around a screen and cheer on Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Naeher and the red, white and blue. That was up to Lynx center Sylvia Fowles to explain.
Hey, that’s Collier. She’ll always be The No Drama Queen. And, as she has proved in her first season, relentlessly effective on the basketball court.
“Napheesa is one of a kind,” Fowles said. “She makes my job easy. She wants to get it right. She
wants to be the best. She didn’t have any growing pains as a rookie.”
Lindsay Whalen is coaching the University of Minnesota. The great Maya Moore has taken a sabbatical from the game and is, at least for now, walking her own path in life. Seimone Augustus is out after knee surgery.
You look out on the court during Minnesota games and wonder, “Where did the Lynx go?”
Into that vacuum has stepped Collier and given coach Cheryl Reeve 32.9 minutes a game — more than any rookie in the WNBA. She would score 10 points on this afternoon, all in the first half, before battling foul trouble. She’s averaging 11.6 points and her nearly two steals a game is second in the entire league. Only Arike Ogunbowale has scored more points among firstyear players.
Collier, drafted sixth overall, is the rookie with more votes than any other in the WNBA AllStar voting, ninth overall.
She is the UConn player with the most votes.
“I’m really thankful to all the fans and all the support I’ve been getting from everyone,” Collier said. “It’s a real honor.”
Collier received a big ovation from the Mohegan Sun fans. Of course she did. The Huskies’ three successive losses in the Final Four sting for a state spoiled by 11 national championships. Geno Auriemma is driving himself a little crazy these days wondering if Christyn Williams might have been the better offensive option over Katie Lou Samuelson and Collier down the stretch against Notre Dame in the Final Four. Or maybe he should have left Olivia Nelson Ododa near the end. But hey, if the kids had messed up he would have been beating himself up over that.
It’s nuts when you think about it. The Lynx are 86 and that’s one more loss than Collier suffered in four years at UConn.
“It’s hard, I’m not used to it,” Collier said when asked about handling defeat. “You’d rather win obviously, but you can learn more from a loss than a win. You also don’t have time to dwell here. That’s what is nice about it. You can redeem yourself two days later.”
“The appeal of drafting a player from certain schools is that you know there is a certain standard,” Reeve said. “There’s that mediocrity thing that people get really comfortable with. When you have a player way above, it’s an easy fit for our franchise. I think she appreciates being pushed. And I appreciate Geno pushed her hard. I think I look easy compared to Geno.”
Collier was Ms. Automatic around the rim in college. She scored 2,401 points, was twice a firstteam All-American, and while she didn’t win national player of the year, no one argued more on her behalf than Auriemma.
“It feels great, being back in this arena, somewhere I have played so many times before,” Collier said prior to the game. “It feels like I’m back at college playing.”
“The fans are always great here,” she said afterward.
Collier didn’t run up to Storrs during the trip to Connecticut. All her teammates are gone on summer break. There has been no such summer break for Collier.
“It’s difficult if you ask these rookies who come in,” Reeve said. “If they are a good player on a good team, they’re playing in the Final Four. They got drafted a couple of days later. They’re in a camp a couple of weeks later. That is a huge challenge.
“The mental transition and then you’re transitioning to a different game. The pro game is very different. Phee has been unfazed by each segment of the season. I am worried. She is playing 32 minutes a game. Can she handle it? She’ll tell you we play a lot more games in a week. Now, we don’t practice as long. College practices three hours, it’s nothing. We try to manage the bodies.”
Reeve coached Collier on the U.S. national team for over a month, she got a chance know Collier as a person and says she couldn’t emphasize enough about how that helped develop a relationship.
“The easiest adjustment for me has been getting to know my teammates and meshing with them,” Collier said. “They made it really easy for me to be myself and be open. The hardest — probably the physicality is a lot more than college. And also knowing personnel, everyone is really good at everything, so you have to know them well to take away what they want to do. I think the experiences of playing has helped a lot, especially when you play teams for a second time.”
On this day, Collier, who plans to play in China next winter, would drain a 3 over her old UConn teammate Morgan Tuck. She had some trouble handling Jonquel Jones down low when Fowles came off her. She also turned the ball over on the final inbounds pass, although the Sun’s desperation shot went awry. Hey, she is a rookie.
“The idea of what it takes to win a possession, offensively and defensively, she’s going to do the little things,” Reeve said when asked what has been the easiest part of Collier’s pro transition. “That’s her comfort zone. When it breaks down, I cut. That’s Geno, right? The UConn system. Defensively, understanding where to help, play personnel tendencies. Those things come natural for her.”
As far as the hardest: “Changing position and what types of shots she’s getting is different,” Reeve said. “She works tirelessly on her perimeter shooting. Defensively, she’ll tell you, guarding guards around a bunch of screens has been her biggest challenge. Phee improves every day.”
No, Collier hasn’t talked to Maya. Moore, burned out some on basketball, intensely Christian and passionate about social justice, is sitting out this season and it’s unclear when she will return.
“I’m just happy to see Maya do other things outside basketball that she’s passionate about,” said Fowles, who has texted Moore. “When Maya feels like she’s ready, she’ll be ready. We just have to respect her.”
So the Lynx will climb aboard a flight home Sunday morning. They hope to catch the end of the World Cup final. Yes, there is still much to do for their former soccer goalie in her rookie season.