As they battle head-to-head in the WNBA Finals, former UConn superstars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart were named to the 2024 All-WNBA first team on Wednesday alongside Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas for the second consecutive season.
Collier and Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, this year’s league MVP, were both unanimous selections to the first team, and Stewart received 65 of a possible 67 first-team votes. Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark rounded out the first team as the only guard selected.
Thomas and Collier were both first-team selections in 2023, and Stewart has earned the honor every year since she tore her Achilles and missed the 2019 season. She was also a second-team selection as a rookie in 2016 and was named to the first team for the first time in 2018. Collier made the second team in 2020, and Thomas received her first selection to the second team in 2022. At least one former UConn player has been named to the All-WNBA first team in every season since 2001 except 2019.
Thomas’s season with the Sun ended in a 3-2 semifinal series loss to Collier’s Minnesota Lynx, but the veteran star was at her best during the playoffs. She led the team averaging 10.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and 7.9 assists during the regular season and was even closer to a triple-double average in the postseason logging 14.9 points, 9.4 assists and 7.9 rebounds. She recorded two triple-doubles in the regular season and one in the playoffs, extending her lead as the WNBA career record-holder in both categories. Thomas also had the highest rating on the Sun’ league-leading defense and was named to the WNBA’s All-Defensive second team.
Thomas joins former UConn star Tina Charles (2011-12) as the only other player in Sun history to earn two All-WNBA First Team selections in their careers with the franchise.
Collier is having a career season that she hopes will end in her first WNBA championship. The former Huskies star logged 20.4 points and 9.7 rebounds during the regular season and is averaging 25.2 points per game since the playoffs began. Collier has dominated the postseason, also averaging 9.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks, and she helped lead Minnesota to the biggest comeback in WNBA Playoffs history in Game 1 of the Finals. On top of her first-team honors, Collier was named the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year.
Stewart, the 2023 league MVP, anchored the New York Liberty to the No. 1 seed in the WNBA Playoffs averaging 20.4 point, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists. The UConn legend set a WNBA Finals record with seven steals in the Liberty’s Game 2 win over the Lynx, and she is averaging 19.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists since the start of the postseason. Stewart is already a two-time WNBA champion from seven seasons spent with the Seattle Storm, but the two-time Finals MVP is looking to secure her first title since signing with New York as a free agent in 2023.
