From the very first moment she stepped onto the WNBA court, Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier has never taken no for an answer.
She's a pro at tuning out the doubters. Six years into her WNBA career, the UConn product still believes she was the top prospect in the 2019 WNBA Draft. In fact, she went on to win that season's Rookie of the Year award despite the Lynx selecting her No. 6 overall. Secondly, after giving birth to her daughter Mila in May 2022, Collier showcased her ability to be both a mother and an elite professional athlete. She returned the following year, picking up her third WNBA All-Star nod while carrying the Lynx all season long.
And most recently, she reformed the business of women's basketball as the co-founder of Unrivaled 3×3 Basketball. The offseason league debuted to great success this past January.
So when a controversial foul call at the end of Game 5 of the 2024 Finals proved to be the final barrier between Collier and her first WNBA championship, she swore it would never happen to her again.
"To have it end that way, it feels super unjust," Collier told reporters last October, shortly after the Lynx lost to the New York Liberty. "I don't think that is something to get over."
Now, as a new season tips off, Collier is laser-focused on rewriting the narrative for the Lynx. But she's also making moves off the court, announcing today that she's joined the athlete roster at Jordan Brand. The Nike offshoot is building up its women's basketball footprint, currently supporting 12 WNBA players including Atlanta's Rhyne Howard and Las Vegas's Dana Evans.
For the 2024 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, Jordan Brand represents an iconography of excellence. And it's one Michael Jordan himself explained to her this past winter.
"I'm really excited about everything that I saw from the outside," she told Just Women's Sports late last month. "But going through the pitch, learning what Jordan's about, just the way they exemplify greatness. It's something that I've always wanted be a part of."
"[Michael] Jordan, if you're a basketball player, just watching those games — the iconic red and black and white shoes that he wore — he was everywhere," she said of the brand's namesake NBA icon. "He's definitely still my idol."
Joining a basketball legacy at Jordan Brand
It might be too early to draw parallels between one of the greatest players of all time and a 28-year-old still growing into her full potential. But Collier's commitment to greatness does mirror His Airness.
Collier is aiming to win everything this year, from her first WNBA MVP award to her first championship with the Lynx. And it appears that the league is on board.
In this week's anonymous WNBA general manager survey, Minnesota was named most likely to win a title this season. And 67% of respondents tapped Collier for 2025 MVP — towering over three-time MVP A'ja Wilson's 25%.
Of course, it's no surprise. Collier is a wiry power forward with an unstoppable motor on both ends of the court. She has the ability to beat defenders off the dribble and a lethal fadeaway that gives opponents fits in the paint. And her balance only improves with every passing season.
Yet while experts key into Collier's rising form, they're also recognizing the fire that's been lit under Minnesota. After all, they're still convinced they were one foul call away from last year's WNBA title.
The Lynx clearly have a chip on their shoulder. And their job now is to make sure they use that as an asset, and not a liability.
"It's just the worst feeling — you don't want to feel like that again," Collier said of falling just short of the 2024 championship. "So use it to push you every day, where you're getting in the gym more than you were."
"It's just that little voice you hear when you're like, 'Okay, I'm tired,' or 'I don't have to lift today.' Or, you know, 'I shot yesterday. I don't have to shoot today,'" she continued. "It's that voice that's like, 'Well, do you want the same outcome or not?'"
Collier is making the change she wants to see
Growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri — also the hometown of retired Lynx legend and fellow Jordan Brand signee Maya Moore — Collier credits her parents for fostering her drive to create a future for herself that she hasn't always seen around her, both on and off the court.
It's a mentality that dates back to her earliest days in a pair of basketball sneakers. That's when her local youth team said they didn't have room on their roster for a young Collier discovering her love for the game.
"My parents were like, 'We'll make our own team," she recalled. "And that's what they did. They got girls from surrounding cities, and we created our own basketball team. And we ended up playing really well."
Decades later, Collier brought that same ingenuity to founding Unrivaled alongside old friend and fellow WNBA standout Breanna Stewart. And when it debuted in early 2025, the league's resounding impact sent shockwaves across the entire women's sports landscape.
"If you want to see a difference or make a change, why not just do it yourself?" Collier said. She and Stewart were done waiting for the higher-ups to capitalize on the potential they were seeing every day.
Unrivaled's timing couldn't have been better, with the 3×3 upstart riding women's basketball's "Caitlin Clark effect" wave in perfect harmony. But Unrivaled's success wasn't all the Indiana rookie's doing.
"We saw a need for something," she added. "It's something that we've been pushing for and fighting for for so long," she added, urging that women's sports's appeal, when given a platform, is undeniable. "People enjoy what we're doing, and now you see how excited people are over women's sports."
Minnesota's 2025 mantra: If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Today, Collier is leaving Unrivaled's day-to-day operations to her capable staff while she attends to unfinished business in the WNBA. The Lynx had a quieter offseason than many franchises this year, avoiding the many roster shakeups embraced across the league. In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Collier is subsequently all in, noting that having an established core can give Minnesota an advantage. And that rings especially true as other teams scramble to put new puzzle pieces together.
"It's one of my favorite teams I've ever played on. Just the chemistry that we had from day one, the way that we were so there for each other," she said of the Lynx's personality-rich lineup. "It felt like college, honestly, where you create those bonds. You don't see that a lot in professional sports anymore."
The Lynx's training camp performances reflected that assertion. They've moved like a well-oiled machine with the ability to hit the ground running.
"We're doing things in day four of training camp that we were doing halfway through the season last year, just because everyone knows what's going on," Collier said.
That edge could be on full display in tonight's season-opener, as Minnesota takes on a revamped Dallas Wings before facing fresh rebuilds in LA and Connecticut.
Jordan Brand is striking while the WNBA iron is hot
Collier isn't giving herself much time to slow down. After playing with Unrivaled, she's jumping into this year's WNBA slate while also flexing her muscles with Jordan Brand. But she's also making time to appreciate the massive moment women's basketball is currently enjoying.
"I just feel really lucky to be able to say that I am living in this time. And get to play during this time," she said. "To see that change and to be a part of it, usually things like this happen so slowly over time. But when you see it happening in the blink of an eye, you can track the change."
No matter what this season holds, Collier will strive to embody everything that Jordan Brand hopes for in an athlete. That means a shrewd business sense, an understanding of what makes a team great, a competitive prowess, and that unwillingness to accept no for an answer as she pushes for even more progress.
"This partnership feels especially meaningful because it connects my performance on the court with impact that extends far beyond the game itself," Collier stated in Friday's press release, issued just hours before she's scheduled to hit the court in Heir Series sneakers.
"When young girls see that iconic silhouette, I want it to inspire them to aim higher than they thought possible."
Women's hockey history was made on Wednesday, with PWHL Minnesota taking home the inaugural league championship Walter Cup.
After Boston forced a Game 5 in double-overtime on Sunday, Minnesota went on to notch a decisive victory with a final score of 3-0. Liz Schepers, Michela Cava, and Kendall Coyne Schofield all found the back of the net for Minnesota, with Schofield’s coming on an empty-netter to end the game.
The win came after a disappointing Game 4 loss at home that saw a game-winning — and possibly championship-winning — Minnesota goal waived off. But back in Boston, Minnesota was determined not to leave without that Cup.
"I just think to have something so good taken away, like last game, I just think we knew we had to have it," Taylor Heise, who was named Playoffs MVP after posting a league-leading eight postseason points, told the Athletic. "Like that feeling [of winning] — you had it and you want it back."
The captain and oldest member of the roster, Coyne Schofield had the honors of taking the first lap on the ice with the Walter Cup in hand.
"It makes me want to tear up thinking about it. She's done so much for this sport," Heise said about the captain. "She's definitely one of the people that's helped this sport grow and one of the reasons why this arena is sold out here tonight."
Minnesota goalie Nicole Hensley relayed that Coyne Schofield, who helped to found the PWHL, was more than worthy of the win.
"There’s so much about this day that she deserves," said goalie Nicole Hensley. “She has obviously done so much for this sport and for this professional league. It’s completely fitting that she’s the first one to touch the Walter Cup.”
Perhaps fittingly, Minnesota began the season with a win over Boston and ended it the same way. And yet as they entered the playoffs, the odds were stacked against them,
Minnesota started postseason play as the lowest seed after ending a regular season that saw record-breaking attendance numbers on a five-game losing streak. Then, on the brink of elimination against top-seeded Toronto — who started the first round on a 2-0 series lead — Minnesota won three straight to advance to the Finals.
"It’s honestly hard to put into words," said Coyne Schofield. "As soon as we got in, we never looked back. There were times we were down, but we weren’t out. Some people may have counted us out, but we believed in us, the entire way."
Toronto’s Professional Women's Hockey League team skated to victory Wednesday night, kicking off the league's first playoff match with a 4-0 win over visiting Minnesota.
Natalie Spooner — the league's leading regular season goalscorer with 20 goals in 24 games — opened things up with the first playoff goal in PWSHL history at 9:47 of the first period, later notching an assist in front of Coca-Cola Coliseum's 8,473 fans. Captain Blayre Turnbull followed up Spooner's efforts with two goals of her own, securing the game's final point with just 38 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
In the defensive end, goalie Kristen Campbell put a stop to all 26 shots fired her way. With game one behind them, Toronto has pulled ahead of Minnesota 1-0 in the best-of-five series.
Good soup. 🍲
— PWHL (@thepwhlofficial) May 9, 2024
Kristen Campbell locks in the first-ever PWHL Playoff shutout! pic.twitter.com/J0Ve9MjHpw
"It's what I believe I expect and I think what the group expects as well," head coach Troy Ryan said in postgame remarks. "Being everything we thought it would be, I think the atmosphere was incredible. I think our performance was pretty good and I think it's a great stepping-stone for us to continue to build on for this series and hopefully moving forward.
For Turnbull, the win came as a result of weeks of regular season preparation, adding that the team was "proud" of its execution throughout their first playoff game.
"The whole season we’ve been building and building waiting to get into playoffs and trying to find our game every week and get better so that when players arrived, we are ready to go," Turnbull said. "I think there’s still a few areas that we can keep improving on, but overall, we’re pretty happy with where we’re at, so we’re excited to get back on the ice for game two."
The postseason outing continues a record-breaking regular season for the young league. In total, the PWHL set six attendance records for women’s hockey this year, with nearly 400,000 fans showing up to watch the inaugural teams take the ice over the 72-game season.
Toronto will face Minnesota at home once more in Game 2 of the series on Friday, before the teams move to Minnesota for Monday's Game 3.
UConn’s Paige Bueckers grew up watching basketball in her home state of Minnesota. She has memories of Lynx and Golden Gophers games at Williams Arena — she attended those games starting when she was 10 or 12 years old.
Now, Bueckers will return to The Barn, but not as a spectator.
“It’s super surreal because I grew up going to games at The Barn and watching the Gophers and watching the Lynx play there,” Bueckers said to the Hartford Courant. “So to be playing there, where I grew up, my childhood, at my dream school wearing a UConn jersey in that arena, it’s like a surreal feeling for me.”
The Huskies are set to take on the Gophers in Minnesota at 5 p.m. ET Sunday in a homecoming game for Bueckers. Bueckers will be taking the same court her childhood idols took over a decade ago.
“I envisioned it when I was younger,” Bueckers said. “Just wanting to be the people who were playing on the court. As a young kid, that was where I wanted to be. You never knew what the future was going to hold, but it was something I aspired to do.”
UConn’s head coach Geno Auriemma goes out of his way to schedule homecoming games for his seniors, including two international matchups this season — one for Nika Mühl in Croatia during the Huskies’ preseason tour and one for Aaliyah Edwards in Toronto, which will be played in December.
Williams Arena is likely to be packed when the local star makes her return — more than 10,000 seats are expected to be filled when Bueckers takes the court at the 14,625-seat arena.
Among those 10,000 people will be Bueckers’ family, friends and other Minnesotans in the basketball community. And Bueckers credits these people with her upbringing.
“You often hear the phrase ‘Minnesota nice,’” Bueckers told CT Insider. “I think everything around here, just everybody knows everybody. Everybody’s nice to each other. Everybody’s like family once you meet them. So, I think that just is sort of why I love relationships, why I love people so much and why I love getting to know people so much and I think that has a lot to do with where I’m from.”
But for Bueckers, a homecoming game isn’t just about seeing family and friends. It’s about being who Rebekkah Brunson and Lindsey Whalen were to her for other young girls.
“I want to be an inspiration to kids,” Bueckers said. “I want people to see that injuries happen, adversity happens, but what do you do to come back from it? How hard do you attack that process? I want people to see passion when they see me play, fire and energy and that I love the game.”
College volleyball continues to surge in the TV ratings.
Sunday’s match between No. 2 Wisconsin and Minnesota became the most-watched in NCAA history, averaging 1.66 million viewers. The Badgers and Gophers got a boost from a prime spot on FOX, filling the 4 p.m. ET NFL window for regions without a football game in that slot. In total, 76% of the United States received the match on FOX.
The previous viewership record for an NCAA volleyball match came in 2021, when 1.19 million viewers tuned in to watch Wisconsin win the national championship over Nebraska. And the previous regular-season viewership record came just last week, when Wisconsin lost to Nebraska — and averaged 612,000 viewers on Big Ten Network, more than the Cornhuskers football game the same day.
“How many times have we seen when you give opportunities to elite women’s sports that they show up?” Minnesota head coach Keegan Cook told the Star Tribune. “You have to have opportunity in order to meet opportunity … elated to see the response.”
Wisconsin swept Minnesota 3-0 on Sunday, but that didn’t deter viewers. The match averaged more viewers than Formula 1 racing on ABC, the Premier League on NBC and NFL Countdown on ESPN.
Earlier this year, 518,000 viewers tuned in to watch Nebraska’s outdoor volleyball match in late August, which set the all-time attendance record for women’s sports.