The reigning SEC Player of the Year and 2023 National Champion is already setting records in her rookie season.
34. 13.
Those are the records for most double doubles in the NCAA and the WNBA.
Both of those records are held by none other than the Bayou Barbie, Angel Reese.
It is hardly a surprise to anyone who has followed LSU women’s basketball over the last few years that Reese is doing what she is doing in the WNBA. It is exactly what she did at LSU.
It is, apparently, a surprise to the WNBA which let the reigning SEC Player of the Year who led the SEC in scoring and rebounds for the last two years fall to seventh in the WNBA draft.
The Chicago Sky, however, traded up for Reese giving up a role player and the eighth pick in the draft. Reese in her less two games has scored and rebounded as much as those two players have this season combined.
It would seem obvious that the Sky got the steal of the draft, but that was hardly the consensus at the time. In a poll of WNBA GMs, Reese did not finish as the steal after the draft,
It is a move that they have had to come to regret as Reese has proven that the athlete LSU fans saw set records and win a national championship was exactly who she always was.
Reese has set a new record for double doubles breaking basketball legend Candace Parker’s previous mark of 12 set 14 years ago. She more than doubled the previous rookie record for double doubles which was six.
She is currently one of only four players averaging a double double in the WNBA. The other three are Olympians Napheesa Collier, A’Ja Wilson, and Dearica Hamby.
Not only is Reese averaging a double double in her rookie season, but she is doing at the top of the league in rebounds and offensive rebounds.
Reese is currently on pace to break fellow LSU great, 4x Olympic gold medalist, and WNBA MVP Sylvia Fowles record of 404 total rebounds in a season and is averaging 11.85 rebounds per game which is tied for the second most in a season (Fowles averaged 11.9 per game in 2018, but the season was six games shorter).
While much has been made of her offensive rebounding, she would lead the league in offensive rebounds even if you took out rebounds off her own miss, a criticism that has been used to discredit her leading in an objectively good stat. Her offensive rebounding is why the Sky have been able to stay in the playoff hunt after losing 60% of their scoring from the previous season. It is also why LSU won a national championship.
Reese has gradually improved as she has gotten more used to the WNBA over the season. After averaging just 11.4 points and 9.2 rebounds on 33% shooting in her first nine games, Reese has come on fire averaging 16.3 points and 14 rebounds on 48% shooting (the best of any rookie in that span).
Since the start of June, she has averaged more points than any rookie in the league.
All of which, is no surprise to LSU faithful. This is who she was from the moment she stepped on the PMAC. Honestly, it was who she was before she even transferred here.
Tiger fans were lucky enough to watch her lead the Tigers to a championship and I hope they are watching her in the WNBA because this has been a special season.
She is doing what players like Fowles and Parker did in their prime as a rookie. To put it in her words:
“I’m a dog. you cannot teach that”