Arike Ogunbowale didn’t watch the 2023 WNBA Draft. She was doing what she does every Monday night — playing pick-up basketball. But her cell phone was close by, and she kept checking it for updates.

Ogunbowale liked what she saw. Dallas not only grabbed NCAA leading scorer Maddy Siegrist at No. 3 overall, but continued to accumulate top-tier shooters as the rest of the draft unfolded, making four selections in the first round and and six overall.

“I thought we did really good,” she says. “It’s pretty much what I envisioned them to be drafting. I was happy with it.”

Since she entered the WNBA as the Dallas Wings’ fifth overall pick in the 2019 draft, Ogunbowale has become the backbone of the franchise, and Dallas has been intent on building the team around her. But while Ogunbowale has racked up many individual accolades over the past four seasons, including WNBA scoring champion in 2020 and All-Star MVP in 2021, the Wings have struggled to achieve consistent roster balance and find success in the postseason. They were bounced from the playoffs in a single-elimination first-round game in 2021 and, after finishing the regular season with a .500 record, lost 2-1 in a first-round series against the Connecticut Sun last season.

At this point in her four-year career, Ogunbowale wants more for her team and for the city of Dallas, which has not had a winning season since 2015 or a playoff series win since 2009. Ogunbowale wants to experience a full postseason run.

“My first year (in the playoffs), that’s when it was still the one and done. Last year’s was two out of three. Sadly, I wasn’t able to play in that because I was injured,” says Ogunbowale, 26. “I’m just excited to actually play a playoff series at that and get a chance to go. But the goal for sure is more than the first round this year.”

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Ogunbowale is a two-time WNBA All-Star in her four seasons with Dallas. (Tim Heitman/NBAE via Getty Images)

It’s not as if Wings president and CEO Greg Bibb hasn’t tried to round out the roster with additional talent and find the best combination of players, particularly through the draft, to try to achieve that same goal.

In 2020, Dallas plucked Satou Sabally (Oregon) with the second overall pick, Bella Alaire (Princeton) with the fifth, Tyasha Harris (South Carolina) with the seventh and Luisa Geiselsöder (Germany) in Round 2. In 2021, the Wings used their first and second picks to grab bigs Charli Collier (Texas) and Awak Kuier (Finland), then added Chelsea Dungee (Arkansas) and Dana Evans (Louisville). The 2022 draft yielded Veronica Burton (Northwestern) and Jazz Bond (North Florida).

Still, out of all of the players drafted in the past four years, only five remain in Dallas — Burton, Collier, Kuier, Sabally and Ogunbowale.

“We’ve been on a multi-year journey in terms of building our roster,” Bibb says. “And I believe we were at a spot by the end of last season where we were very much on the way to where we want to be, but there were several roster-related shortcomings or deficiencies that we wanted to address — first in free agency and then in the draft.”

During the WNBA’s frenetic February free agency period, Dallas picked up Diamond DeShields, Natasha Howard and Crystal Dangerfield through trades. And this year’s draft produced another haul of riches. The Wings cast a wide net, selecting Siegrist (Villanova), Lou Lopez Sénéchal (UConn) and Abby Meyers (Princeton) in the first round, then added Ashley Joens (Iowa State) and Paige Robinson (Illinois State) with their subsequent picks. Dallas also traded future draft picks for the rights to Stephanie Soares (Iowa State), who was originally selected fourth overall by the Washington Mystics.

With six draftees and no trades to garner any future picks for themselves, the Wings appeared to be scooping up as much talent as they could to throw out on the court in training camp this week and see what sticks. It’s seemingly the same script they followed for the past few seasons under former head coaches Brian Agler (2019-20) and Vickie Johnson (2021-22).

Bibb insists that isn’t the case.

“A lot of people ask us about our draft class. It’s kind of become this thing, this narrative that Dallas always drafts a ton of players and always has too many players and not enough spots,” he said in the Wings’ introductory team press conference in April. “I’m not sure where the narrative that Dallas does this over-drafting or draft-and-stash [comes from]. It’s just not what we do.”

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Ogunbowale and new signing Natasha Howard participate in the first day of training camp Sunday. (Dallas Wings)

After losing their second- and third-leading scorers Marina Mabrey and Allisha Gray in offseason trades, Bibb says he targeted what Dallas needed the most through the draft — shooters. But he also added size for position, focusing on players who have the ability to excel in multiple positions and use their individual skills in a variety of ways on the court.

Siegrist fits that mold perfectly. As the all-time leading scorer in the Big East and the leading scorer in the nation this past season at 29.2 points per game, she has the ability to get buckets at all three levels. More importantly, depending on how many minutes new coach Latricia Trammell grants her, Siegrist can go in and compete right away.

“I love a scorer. You know I’m a scorer, so I love that (Maddy) can score in a lot of different ways and do it easily,” says Ogunbowale. “I think adding her is really good. She has good size, so she’ll help us with that department. But I think she’ll stretch the floor for sure, she can knock it down. I’m really excited about her.”

Soares is still recovering from a torn ACL she suffered in January and is being billed as a future investment, with the hope that she’ll be ready to go next season. Lopez Sénéchal played with a lingering knee injury for the second half of UConn’s season, and it remains to be seen how it will affect her play. But she, along with Meyers, Joens and Robinson, will be front and center of what is expected to be a highly competitive Wings training camp.

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Dallas traded for Iowa State center and No. 4 pick Stephanie Soares on draft night. (Evan Yu/Just Women's Sports)

Seeing all of the picks taken before and after her, Meyers knows there’s no time to revel in the dream of getting drafted. The reality of the situation is clear to the former Ivy League Player of the Year — every draftee is competing for a spot alongside established young talent and valuable veterans.

“I think for me, I gotta do really well at the intangibles. I have to do really well at the small things,” Meyers says. “So I have to shoot well, I have to move off the ball well, I have to communicate well. I gotta do everything that makes a great all-around player.”

Since arriving in Dallas, Meyers has been hitting the gym and training with the other rookies, having fun and soaking up as much knowledge as she can. She’s also spoken with some of the vets, including DeShields, who told her to drop the rookie mindset and remember that, at the end of the day, they’re all pros.

“I know what I need to show and work on,” Meyers says. “But yeah, it’s gonna come down to the little things I think. It’s gonna come down to consistency, come down to meeting expectations of not only myself as a player, but also the expectations of what the coaches are looking for in a player for the team.”

Dallas currently has 18 players on its roster and only 12 open slots. As has become the norm, getting drafted in the second and third rounds is often more of an open invitation than a guarantee. But Trammell has said she’s going to treat every player that steps on the court as if they’re going to be with the team all season.

“It’s probably the most competitive that it’s been, honestly even since before I was here,” Ogunbowale says. “There’s so many good players — the players we have now and the players added, we got a lot of players in free agency. I think it’s gonna be super, super competitive. I’m excited to watch people compete, I’m excited to obviously compete against them. Hopefully my spot is locked down.”

As camp begins and the WNBA season fast approaches, the Wings’ new coaching staff has their work cut out for them. With the roster cutdown deadline set for May 18 and their season opener against the Atlanta Dream on May 20, the Wings have just over two weeks to finalize the roster and figure out rotations, player combinations and positions with the hope of contending in a newly top-heavy league.

The question remains: Will this be the year it all comes together?

Ogunbowale is optimistic.

“I think this is gonna be our best year yet. I feel like with the new coaching staff, they’re excited and seem super knowledgeable in the sport and just want to see us be great. They seem like they’re putting everything together to give us the tools to be great,” she says.

“I think we have players now that are super skilled, that have won championships. Just adding those other pieces and the pieces that we have, I think it’s gonna be a really good season for us.”

Lyndsey D’Arcangelo is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering the WNBA. She also contributes to The Athletic and is the co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League. Follow Lyndsey on Twitter @darcangel21.

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale will remain out through at least the first round of the playoffs after undergoing a procedure to repair a pelvic injury, the team announced Tuesday.

Ogunbowale scored 12 points in 25 minutes in Saturday’s overtime win against the Indiana Fever but exited with an injury. She missed Monday’s win against the New York Liberty, which secured a playoff spot for the Wings.

“Hurts my heart that I can’t be out there with the team,” Ogunbowale tweeted in the wake of the news.

The fourth-year player out of Notre Dame underwent an iliac crest core muscle avulsion repair Tuesday and will miss Dallas’ final three games of the regular season as well as the team’s first-round playoff series.

Marina Mabrey stepped up with 31 points in the Wings’ victory Monday. They’ll need to lean on her in Ogunbowale’s continued absence, starting Wednesday with another game against the Liberty. Ogunbowale has played 30 games for Dallas so far this season, averaging 19.7 points and 31.4 minutes per game.

The Wings (17-16) currently sit in sixth place in the WNBA standings, which would put them in line to face the third-place Connecticut Sun (22-11) in a three-game first-round series if the season ended Tuesday. The playoffs are scheduled to begin on Aug. 17.

Arike Ogunbowale was ejected at halftime of the Dallas Wings’ Sunday loss to the Seattle Storm after seemingly kicking a ball into the stands. But the star guard said she was trying to control the ball with her foot in a throwback to her soccer-playing days.

The Storm missed a half-court shot at the halftime buzzer, and the ball fell toward Ogunbowale. She hit the ball with her foot while players walked off the court.

Ogunbowale addressed the ejection in a series of Twitter posts after the game Sunday, saying she was trying to control the basketball like a soccer ball.

“If you know me you know I was a soccer player first. Literally every practice and game I stop the basketball with my feet, pass it to my teammates with my feet etc. Ball comes at me fast I always stop the ball with my feet it’s just my first instinct,” wrote Ogunboawle, attaching a video of her juggling and flicking a basketball with her feet during her time at Notre Dame.

“To be ejected for something like this is wild,” Ogunbowale wrote. “From here on out I’ll try to remember WNBA refs aren’t fans of soccer players.”

The incident comes after Ogunbowale kicked the scorer’s table during her team’s loss to Los Angeles on May 31 after missing a free throw.

“That incident happened in L.A. as well,” Dallas coach Vickie Johnson said after Sunday’s game. “We’re not on the soccer field, we’re on the basketball court and you have to respect the game, period. We play basketball with our hands.”

Johnson told reporters that she would need to speak to Wings president Greg Bibb regarding team discipline for Ogunbowale.

“We have talked about it, but that’s something Greg and I have to discuss a little bit more,” she said. “When it affects the team, it affects all of us.”

The Dallas Wings’ 93-91 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday night included some last-second dramatics.

The Wings trailed by two points with 0.8 seconds remaining when Arike Ogunbowale went to the free throw line with a chance to tie the game.

After missing the first attempt, Ogunbowale was called for a violation on the second for pump-faking her shot. Following the call, she kicked the scorer’s table in frustration and received a technical foul.

Los Angeles missed the ensuing technical free throw to end the game.

Ogunbowale had sunk her previous 17 free throw attempts before that trip to the line, starting with a perfect 10-for-10 performance against Phoenix on May 19.

After the game, Dallas coach Vickie Johnson said it wasn’t just Ogunbowale’s free throw shooting that lost them the game.

“Like you said, she was 17-for-17. It happens,” Johnson said. “The biggest thing that I told the team afterwards is, when we are in shootaround and we’re taking our free throws, make it game-like. Those two free throws could be winning or losing the game.

“It’s an opportunity for you to sit down and focus and make your free throws. We didn’t do that tonight. We didn’t do that as a team. We shot 63 percent from the free throw line. Unheard of. Just making our free throws, we would’ve won.”

So far this season, the Wings are averaging 80.1 percent from the free throw line. On Tuesday, they shot 63.6 percent (14-for-22).

“We had an opportunity to make free throws, we didn’t make wide open shots,” Johnson said. “Did we deserve to win? No. But I would’ve loved to win.”

Arike Ogunbowale put on a show Thursday night, scoring 37 points to lead the Dallas Wings to a 94-84 win over the Phoenix Mercury.

Her impressive tally marked the most points scored by a player in a single game so far this season and her highest-scoring game since 2020.

Ogunbowale drained five of her 11 attempted 3-point shots while notching five assists and four rebounds.

Marina Mabrey added to the Wings’ offensive performance with 13 points and a career-high ten assists, while Allisha Gray contributed 16 points and five blocks.

Diana Taurasi had a strong night of her own. With her 31 points, she scored at least 30 points in a game for the 50th time in her career.

The Wings, however, outshot the Mercury 47.2 percent to 39.7 percent from the field and 44 percent to 20.8 percent from deep. Phoenix was without top-scorer Skylar Diggins-Smith, who was sidelined with a non-COVID illness.

Dallas improves to a 3-2 record on the season following Thursday’s win, while Phoenix falls to 2-3.

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale is joining forces with Red Bull for a season-long community giveback program to raise money for solar-powered lighting at basketball courts around the city.

As part of the program, called “Dallas Has Wiiings,” $800 will go to the new lighting systems for every 3-point shot Ogunbowale sinks during the 2022 WNBA season.

The Wings star took shots at a temporary court overlooking Dallas’ Reunion Tower last week to celebrate the project’s launch. Every 3-point shot she made turned on another set of lights on the tower, and with her 10th basket, she lit up the entire tower.

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(courtesy of Red Bull)

“We got it, we lit up the Reunion Tower! It was tough, but the ball lit up is proof and now I’m just excited to be lighting up courts around the city of Dallas,” Ogunbowale said in a statement. “Obviously, I’m a basketball player and Dallas is my home, so being able to connect something that I do every night with helping the community is amazing.”

The program, which kicked off May 7, will run through the end of the regular season on August 14. Ogunbowale and Red Bull will donate up to $50,000 to the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department at the end of the season to address the city’s restoration efforts.

If Ogunbowale’s start to the season is any indication, the Wings guard will dominate from beyond the arc. The 25-year-old made four of her nine attempts from 3-point range and notched 21 points to help the Wings to an 81-71 victory over the Liberty on Sunday.

Ogunbowale was averaging 42.3 percent from behind the 3-point line through three games this season.

The Dallas Wings recorded their first win of the season Friday night, downing the Washington Mystics 94-86.

Arike Ogunbowale led the charge for the Wings, notching 27 points, with 19 of those points coming in the second frame alone. The Dallas guard sunk six threes, shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc.

Alisha Gray added to Ogunbowale’s tally, contributing 21 points of her own, while Isabelle Harrison notched a double-double with 15 points and ten rebounds.

Elena Delle Donne had 20 points for the Mystics, but the team’s 18 turnovers compared to the Wings’ nine was too much to overcome.

Washington suffered without star Natasha Cloud, who is sidelined due to health and safety protocols.

After the games, Delle Donne addressed Cloud’s absence, saying, “I hate playing without her.”

“You see it in our lulls, you see it in our lack of control sometimes and our lack of getting into things. You also see it on the defensive end,” said Delle Donne. “Tash affects the game so much and her energy is missed.”

The Wings and the Mystics will face off again on Tuesday at College Park Center in Texas.

It may come as a shock to some that Arike Ogunbowale went fifth overall to Dallas in the 2019 WNBA Draft, and not earlier.

The 2020 WNBA scoring champion and 2021 WNBA All-Star MVP has since earned the reputation as one of the most impactful players in the league.

“I mean, me being me like in my head, I know what I am going to do in the league, so that’s their loss,” Ogunbowale remembers thinking on draft night, recounting the moment to Kelley O’Hara on the latest episode of The Players’ Pod.

“I was with my parents, one of my brothers, and we were just at the table waiting to get called. I really didn’t know what number I was going to get called, so it was a surprise. The first time I talked to Dallas was the night before the draft,” Ogunbowale says. “I really thought I was going to Minnesota at six, to be honest.”

The 25-year-old has no qualms about how the draft shook out, telling O’Hara that everything turned out as it was supposed to.

“I’m always about everything happens for a reason, so I wasn’t meant to go to those places,” she says. “And I love Dallas now.”

Ogunbowale wasted no time showing why she was a top draft pick, leading the Wings with 19.1 points and 3.2 assists per game in 2019. She earned a place on the WNBA All-Rookie Team with her performance.

“I wanted to dominate,” Ogunbowale says. “After the All-Star break, something just clicked, and I was just going crazy.”

Now entering her fourth WNBA season, the guard signed a three-year, supermax contract extension with Dallas in February.

When asked who her all-time WNBA starting five would be, Ogunbowale rattle doff a number of greats, most of whom are still playing: “(Sylvia Fowles) at the five, I love her. Diana (Taurasi) at the two, Maya (Moore) at the three, Sue (Bird) at the one and Candace (Parker) at the four,” she says.

Ogunbowale cited Natasha Howard as the most underrated player in the league.

“She won championships with Seattle. She doesn’t get talked about enough, but I don’t think they could’ve won without her because she’s amazing, really,” Ogunbowale says.

She didn’t skip a beat when asked which player she would recruit, saying she wants to play with Seattle Storm forward and three-time WNBA All-Star Breanna Stewart.

As for the WNBA’s best trash talker, Ogunbowale agrees with many that Diana Taurasi holds that title. “(She) really doesn’t care what she says to anybody,” Ogunbowale says.

She also likes playing against Connecticut Sun guard Courtney Williams. “That’s my dog, but she’s always chatting,” Ogunbowale says. “I don’t trash talk, but any time I play her, I am talking because she’s just talking. So I’ve got to talk, too.”

For more on Ogunbowale’s WNBA insights, listen to her full conversation with Kelley O’Hara on The Players’ Pod.

Arike Ogunbowale’s iconic buzzer-beater to seal Notre Dame’s national championship in 2018 almost didn’t happen. Ogunbowale, now a star with the Dallas Wings, tells Kelley O’Hara on the latest episode of The Players’ Pod that she considered leaving the program after her freshman year.

“Coming in, I was a top-five player, McDonald’s All-American, you obviously have all these expectations,” she says. “And then you get there, I am coming off the bench, some games not playing. I’m like, ‘What is this?'”

Instead of entering the transfer portal, though, Ogunbowale decided to commit herself fully to improving her game and earning playing time on coach Muffet McGraw’s team.

“It’s all about trusting the process, trusting yourself, and you just really got to put the work in,” Ogunbowale tells O’Hara.

The number of players opting to transfer in women’s college basketball has reached historic highs the past two offseasons since the NCAA allowed one-time transfers to play without sitting out a season. Ogunbowale has noticed the trend and reflected on her own college journey.

“I love that kids are able to transfer, do whatever they want, but a lot of times you just got to stick through,” Ogunbowale says. “I wanted to leave my freshman year, and if I would’ve left, you never know what would’ve happened. Like, I ended up winning a national championship my junior year that might not have happened anywhere else.”

Sticking it out, Ogunbowale became a starter her sophomore year and averaged 20.8 points per game on the way to leading the Fighting Irish to the NCAA title as a junior. She hit the game-winning shot in Notre Dame’s 2018 Final Four overtime win over UConn before following it up with more heroics against Mississippi State in the championship game.

“The whole year was crazy,” Ogunbowale recalls. “We had, like, four ACL tears so we really were going like six, seven deep the whole season, which honestly, looking back, it’s a blessing because you can make a mistake and coach can’t pull you out.”

The rollercoaster year culminated in an electrifying national championship game, where Ogunbowale sunk the game-winning shot for Notre Dame. The play was actually drawn up for another Notre Dame player to take the show, Ogunbowale says, but it broke down in the moment and the ball ended up in her hands.

“It turned out good, but those three seconds felt like a lifetime literally,” she says. “Anytime I see those shots, especially around March Madness, I obviously get tagged in them a lot … and I just sit and watch it. Like wow, it was crazy.”

Listen to the latest episode of The Players’ Pod for more from Ogunbowale on her basketball journey through college, the WNBA and overseas.

Arike Ogunbowale found herself in a tense situation in early March, living in Russia amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The 25-year-old was playing with WBC Dynamo Kursk, her overseas team since 2020, when the military conflict began. She says those closest to her in the United States quickly urged her to come home.

“Everybody is texting me like, ‘You need to get out,'” Ogunbowale tells Kelley O’Hara on the latest episode of The Players’ Pod. “Where I am in Kursk, it was pretty close to the border. Stuff is going on in the air every night.”

Eventually, Ogunbowale was able to leave Russia, right as the war was escalating.

Brittney Griner, who competed for UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia, has been detained in the country since late February after being arrested on suspicion of carrying hashish oil in her luggage. Many have voiced their concerns for the Phoenix Mercury star, including U.S. government officials and the WNBA commissioner.

“We continue to be working diligently on bringing Brittney Griner home,” Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said during the WNBA Draft. “This is an unimaginable situation for BG to be in. She continues to have our full support. She’s just been such a great person in the league that I can’t be any more real about the situation she’s in.”

Ogunbowale says her Russian teammates continue to compete “as if nothing is going on,” and she worries about the disinformation they’re hearing regarding the invasion.

“I just feel like there is a lot of news that is not getting fed to them that they really should know,” Ogunbowale tells O’Hara. “Listening to the conversations of what they were thinking is going on, rather than what is actually going on, is night and day, so that’s kind of sad that they’re not getting the right information of actually what is going on and what they’re doing.”

Ogunbowale has not decided whether she will return overseas to play next WNBA offseason. After signing a three-year, supermax contract to remain with the Dallas Wings through 2025, Ogunbowale sees a future where more opportunities keep her stateside in the winter.

“I think the biggest part is just building my brand more, because at the end of the day, the WNBA is four or five months and we are overseas for like seven months, and obviously there isn’t a lot of visibility over there,” she says. “Plus women’s sports is excelling right now, so it’s a great time to build your brand and be here and be visible.”

Listen to the latest episode of The Players Pod for more on Ogunbowale’s basketball career and experience playing abroad.