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UConn Huskies forward Aaliyah Edwards is among the 15 players invited to the WNBA draft on Monday night. Ahead of the ceremony, Edwards had a day out at the Empire State Building observatory in New York.
Edwards finished the 2023-24 season averaging 17.6 points on 59.3% shooting from the floor, 9.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists. She was invited alongside UConn teammate Nika Muhl.
Aaliyah Edwards' Huskies teammate and close friend, Paige Bueckers, hyped up the duo ahead of the ceremony on her Instagram stories with the caption:
"Let's gooo."
Aaliyah Edwards gets ready for draft after Big Dance disappointment
With Paige Bueckers and Aaliyah Edwards on the team, coach Geno Auriemma's UConn Huskies returned to prominence in women's college basketball and were a basket away from the national championship game.
In a hotly contested Final Four game against Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes, the Huskies trailed by two points with 3.9 seconds left and with the ball in the hands of superstar and Edwards' close friend Paige Bueckers.
The shot was never taken because the referee blew the whistle for a moving screen set up by Aaliyah Edwards. Several fans and prominent celebrities contested the controversial decision, and the game ended on a bitter note, 71-69.
After the game, Edwards was still in disbelief at the decision that ended the popular Canadian's college basketball career.
“I wasn’t given an explanation,” Edwards said. “There was no real time to get an explanation. From my point of view, it was pretty clean.”
In a recent news conference, Edwards highlighted the hard work that had culminated in her being almost a guaranteed first-round pick and would not be drawn into speculating where she would be picked.
“It’s also humbling at the same time because even though my name’s out there, it’s more just a credit to all the hard work and the effort I put in behind the scenes and put into the game that I’m passionate about,” Edwards said. “So I’m just going to go into the draft just being blessed with whatever outcome it is, but truly grateful to be recognized like that.”
Edwards will be the nineteenth Canadian to be drafted into the WNBA and is projected by ESPN to be the No. 5 pick by the Dallas Wings.
It promises to be a busy year for Aaliyah Edwards after a grueling college basketball season leading to a WNBA season that will be cut short for the Olympics, where the UConn star will attend with Team Canada.
