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Mechelle VoepelESPN.com
The Dallas Wings lined up Texas post player Charli Collier Thursday with the No. 1 pick in the 2021 WNBA draft.
Collier is the first Longhorns player to be the WNBA’s top pick and the second of the Big 12, after Baylor center Brittney Griner in 2013.
The Wings took on another post player, Awak Kuier from Finland, with the second choice. The 6-foot-5 Kuier is the seventh international player to not play American college basketball and was selected in the top five of a WNBA draft.
For the second season in a row, the three round draw is virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who announced her home picks last season, was at an ESPN studio this year.
The 6-foot-5 Collier averaged 19 points and 11.3 rebounds per game, while shooting 51.1% of the field for the 21-10 Longhorns, who advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight. Collier is an eligible junior because she turns 22 this calendar year.
She will play for a professional team in her native Texas; she is from Mont Belvieu in the Houston area.
“My heart is beating now because I worked so hard for this,” Collier told ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “This is a game I love, I deserve to be here and I was built for it. This is my moment.”
Collier is the third true junior to be No. 1 after Notre Dame guards Jewell Loyd in 2015 and Jackie Young in 2019. Candace Parker of Tennessee was a junior eligible when she was No. 1 in 2008, but she had on attended school for four years, after she had recaptured her first season in 2004-05.
Kuier, 19, plays professionally for Ragusa in Italy, where she has averaged 8.9 points and 6.8 rebounds per game this season. She will not turn 20 until August.
Kuier was born in Cairo after her parents fled war-torn South Sudan. When she was 2 years old, her family emigrated to Finland. She becomes the first Finnish player in WNBA history.
Dallas went 8-14 and missed the playoffs in ninth place in last year’s shortened season in Bradenton, Florida. Like the rest of the WNBA teams, the Wings will be back in their home market this season, playing at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas.
Vickie Johnson is in her first season as a Wings coach; she was previously a head coach in San Antonio and played 13 seasons in the WNBA.
In Collier and Kuier, Johnson and the Wings get two players with big size and scoring and rebounding power. The Wings have three first-round picks and four of the top 13, while the Los Angeles Sparks have two in the first round and five overall.
The Atlanta Dream brought NCAA tournament star Aari McDonald to No. 3. The guard led Arizona to the national championship game and becomes the first Wildcat player to take on the first round of the WNBA draft.