The future is now
Former UConn star Samuelson excited for her next chapter
Katie Lou Samuelson’s 6month old daughter Aliya laid resting against her mother’s chest inside an over-the stomach carrier.
Holding her phone up at just the right angle to not disturb Aliya, the former UConn women’s basketball star fielded questions from the media over Zoom last week. One hand holding her baby and another holding her phone all while wearing a Vanderbilt women’s basketball jacket outside the team’s hotel.
The balancing act of managing new motherhood and a professional career both on and off the court quite literally on fully display.
“Since having her, my whole perspective on training, basketball, and everything has kind of changed just for the better,” Samuelson said. “I’ve been able to play because I want to play, and I want to do something for her. All the things that used to bug me before, they just seem so small now. I feel like I know what hard is now compared to what I thought was hard before.”
Samuelson not only begins her first WNBA season as a mother this summer but will integrate herself into another a new team after signing with the Indiana Fever this offseason. The 2024 season will be her sixth year in the league and fifth active season after sitting out all last summer due to her pregnancy.
The former Husky doesn’t shy away from change nor new challenges. She moved across the country from Southern California to play at UConn and will play for her fifth WNBA team this summer. Samuelson knows how to thrive where her feet are and this year will be no different.
“I feel like I have a chance to just be myself and be who I am as a basketball player,” she said. “Clearly (after) sitting out last year, I want to come back and I want to play my best basketball that I’ve played. And I know that being in a situation where I can be vocal, I can be helpful and I can play passionately and play with the people around me, that’s something that I’m excited for.”
The Orange County, Calif. native arrived in Storrs at the tail end of UConn’s most recent championship title run for the 2015-16 season. Despite going
ring-less the rest of her time in college, she helped keep up the on-court expectations even after that star-studded 2016 Class graduated.
Samuelson was a twotime First Team AllAmerican and remains No. 5 on the program’s alltime scoring list (2,342 career points). She was also twice named the American Athletic Conference Player of the Year, while helping UConn reach the Final Four in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Chicago drafted her No. 4 overall in the 2019 WNBA Draft but traded her to Dallas following her rookie season. The change was good for Samuelson, though. She played more and was more productive during the league’s bubbled 2020 season in Florida.
But again, she was traded after the season.
This time to Seattle where she became one of the Storm’s most dependable starters. She posted even better numbers than the season prior and helped the Storm win the 2021 Commissioner’s Cup. Even then the stability didn’t last.
Seattle traded Samuelson to Los Angeles ahead of the 2022 season. Again, she showed she could thrive in a new environment. The former Husky averaged career-bests in points (9.7 per game), assists (1.9 pg), steals (1.0 pg), 3-point field goal percentage (35.2) and iminutes (29.5. But Samuelson didn’t get a chance to repeat the successful year as she sat out the 2023 season with the Sparks to focus on her pregnancy.
Aliya Renae Cannady was born on Aug. 4, 2023.
Samuelson, 26, poured herself into training to get back in shape and back on the court. Exactly four months after her daughter’s birth, she helped the U.S. win gold at the 3x3 AmeriCup in San Juan.
“It’s been a hard process coming back from having my daughter,” she said. “I’ve had injuries where I’ve been able to kind of still train and do what I need to do through it, but with her I kind of had to start from like ground zero up again. So, trying to get back to where I wanted to be and how I want to feel, I think it was definitely a harder process mentally, not being able to do the things I wanted to do. …
“I put in a lot of work to get to where I need to be, but I think it’s made me better as a player even and I’m more aware of what I need to do specifically to make myself feel good. I’ve been very aware of being efficient with my time and needing to get things done at the pace I need to do so. Not a lot of wasted time around here anymore.”
Since then, the new mom has been busy working under former UConn player and assistant coach Shea Ralph at Vanderbilt as the program’s Director of Player Development. Samuelson has learned first-hand what it’s like to coach a college program while balancing motherhood.
“She has a daughter and so I’ve seen her be able to be such a strong leader and role model and raise her daughter the way that I want to raise Aliya,” Samuelson said. “She’s been nothing but supportive and helping me figure out how to do this and do anything I want to do while having a kid.”
Samuelson has also leaned on her former UConn teammate Napheesa Collier, who became a first-time mom in 2022. Collier gave birth to her daughter in May and got back into shape to play the last four games of the WNBA season that August.
“We both kind of talked about how hard it really is to get back,” Samuelson said. “Right away, you don’t feel how you want to feel and sometimes you go through moments where you’re like, ‘Am I ever gonna feel the way I felt before?’ Those are just short, small moments in there and everyone’s journey is different, but it has been a long, hard process, but I feel better than I have felt in a long time.”
Samuelson entered the WNBA offseason as a free agent. She wanted to find a home for not only herself out on the court, but for her family. She wanted to play for a franchise that celebrated its players and provided resources for them to succeed in life away from basketball.
Indiana invited Samuelson to come tour its facilities in person, and it was on that tour when she knew she found her next fit. The Fever boast a private locker room and its own practice court — things she had yet to experience in the WNBA.
“Just getting to go see what the Fever had in person and see what Coach (Christie) Sides and (General Manager) Lin (Dunn) are trying to do and build, I could really feel it being there in person,” Samuelson said. “… Having Indiana bring me out and show me that I can still feel like home no matter where I am was something that was really special.”
Immediately, Samuelson could tell Indiana would help make the balancing act of playing while being mother a little less overwhelming. She felt like she could fit in and that her new priorities would be taken care of. Plus, it didn’t hurt that her husband Devin Cannady is from Indiana.
“For me now having her, I take my time and time on the court and time as a family very seriously now,” Samuelson said. “I need to be able to do things efficiently. So having access to be able to get on the court outside of practice time whenever I need to and have it be available and completely somewhere that I can go and feel comfortable bringing my daughter there as well, was really important for me.”
The Fever went 13-27 last season and were led by 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston. As of March 4, its roster for the 2024 season consists of eight players (out of 13) that have three years of experience or less experience. Indiana is expected to draft Iowa star Caitlin Clark with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
“Coming off of the season that the Fever had, they were a team that gave everyone a tough game at some point during the season,” Samuelson said. “I know that it’s a pretty young group, but I think it’s a bunch of really talented and really hungry players that want to win. When joining into a team like that, you know, that’s when it’s really dangerous.”