2017 WNBA Draft: LA Sparks Selects Sydney Wiese With #11 Overall Pick

With the #11 overall pick in the 2017 WNBA Draft, the LA Sparks selected Oregon State’s Sydney Wiese to be the newest member of their franchise on Thursday night. The selection generally aligns with previous WNBA mock draft projections, which expected Wiese to be selected somewhere in the first round. Wiese now teams up with former teammate Jamie Weisner for the Los Angeles Sparks and joins Ruth Hamblin (Dallas Wings) and as the only two other Oregon State alumni in the WNBA.

Wiese is coming off a senior campaign in which she averaged 15.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, while leading the Beavers to a 31-5 overall record, a Pac-12 regular season championship and a birth in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. She graduates from Oregon State as the Pac-12’s all-time leader in three-point field goals made (373), the school’s all-time leader in assists (626) and sitting in the fifth position on the all-time scoring list for the Beavers, with 1,824 career points.

This past season, she finished 16th in the country in field goal percentage (42.6%), en route to her fourth straight All Pac-12 selection, while also picking up the Senior CLASS Award and Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year Award. Wiese was additionally the recipient of numerous All-American team accolades, including the Wooden Award All-America Team (1st), the USBWA All-America Team (1st), the ESPNW All-America Team (2nd), the AP All-America Team (3rd) and the WBCA All-Region Team honors.

Wiese will be a player to keep an eye on when WNBA training camps open up on April 23rd, as the LA Sparks will quickly begin to prepare for preseason games that begin just a week later. The WNBA regular season then runs from mid-May to early September, segmented by the WNBA All-Star Game, which will take place on July 22nd. The reigning WNBA Champions are the Los Angeles Sparks, who outlasted the Minnesota Lynx in a five-games series last season to claim the title. The league’s lasting MVP is Sparks’ forward Nneka Ogwumike, while last season’s Rookie of the Year award went to former UCONN star and current Seattle Storm forward, Breanna Stewart. Stewart was of course, the focal point on the UCONN team that infamously ended Oregon State’s surprise run to the Final Four during the 2015-2016 season.

The first chance to see Wiese in action for the Sparks will be on May 2nd against the NY Liberty in the first of their preseason games. They’ll begin the regular season when they tip-off just 11 days later at home against the Seattle Storm.