In early 2020, the University of Oregon women’s basketball team were nearing the end of what they hoped would be a national championship season. On February 3, the Ducks went into one of basketball’s hallowed halls—Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Connecticut—and beat the UConn Huskies 74-56.
Junior Satou Sabally had 17 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal, and a block in that game, putting on the kind of all-around performance that has earned her the nickname “The Unicorn.”
Trouncing the Huskies in Storrs wasn’t the first big win for the Ducks. Back in November, Sabally put up 25 points (including two crucial fourth quarter three-pointers) in Oregon’s 93-86 exhibition victory over Team USA.
Pro-ready and likely to be a lottery pick if she entered the draft, Satou handled her decision with signature thoughtfulness. In an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe before the start of conference tournaments, Sabally shared that she had made up her mind: she would forego her senior season (and the chance to play with younger sister, Nyara) in order to join teammates Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard in the 2020 WNBA draft.
Talking with Rowe, Sabally explained that playing professionally in the WNBA and in Europe was a lifelong dream, one she felt ready to pursue.
She also shared that, as an older sibling, she felt a responsibility to support her family in Berlin, Germany, and her extended family in the small West African country of The Gambia.
On Sunday, March 8, 2020, the Ducks steamrolled Stanford in the Pac 12 Championship game. Oregon was primed for a deep NCAA tournament run, confident they would win the program’s first ever national championship.
But history had other plans. Four days later, the 2019-2020 NCAA tournament was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The Ducks’ unfinished business would remain unfinished and the team, who had scattered for the brief break between the Pac 12 tournament and Selection Sunday, would never be all together again.
So much has changed since February and March of 2020. As well as the ongoing world-transforming consequences of Covid, in 2021 the NCAA adopted new Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) policies that allow college athletes to make money through licensing deals and building their personal brands. If these policies had been in place in 2020, Sabally and many other athletes might have made a different decision.
Satou was the #2 pick in the 2020 draft, selected by the Dallas Wings. The Wings were coming off a then-franchise worst record of 10-24 in 2019. The abbreviated 2020 season was played in the “Wubble,” and the Wings went 8-14. Sabally made the All-Rookie team.
In 2023, Satou’s only fully healthy WNBA season since the Wubble, she put up career best numbers and received the Most Improved Player Award and All-WNBA First Team honors. Under Latricia Trammell, the 3rd coach in Satou’s short tenure in Dallas, the Wings finished 2023 with a franchise-best 22 wins and made it to the WNBA semifinals.
That season reminded the whole league that Satou Sabally can do things on the basketball court that other players just can’t do.
She is a dynamic, willful, and expressive player. She plays with power and imagination: when the ball is in her hands, she might do anything with it, and often does magical things. She is simultaneously a very cerebral player and a very physical player, putting her body on the line and all over the court. She’s one of those players who makes you think about the post-game ice bath by the 2nd quarter.
Satou’s early days with her new team, the Phoenix Mercury have showcased her versatility, strength, and maturity to an unexpected degree. With Kahleah Copper and Alyssa Thomas sidelined for multiple games (Copper for 11, Thomas for 5), Sabally has been the Mercury’s #1 player with the highest usage rate in the league.
She’s 6th in the WNBA in scoring (20.6ppg) and pulling down a team-best 7.9rpg. Her name is all over the team highs in points, rebounds, and assists so far this season. I find it particularly impressive that Sabally — a fiery competitor with a more-than-occasional word for the refs — has fouled out of exactly ZERO games. Her composure and consistency have been impressive.
In the Mercury’s wins last week over Dallas and Las Vegas, Sabally led the team in scoring and rebounding. A lot of the credit for Phoenix’s success so far this season has gone to the new faces balling out, but Sabally is the single biggest reason the Mercury (8 wins, 4 losses) are 4th in the WNBA standings.
The other vertices of the Mercury’s big three, Copper and Thomas, are returning to the court. But Satou has established herself as a leader on equal footing with AT and Kah, and that bodes well for Phoenix going forward. Teammate Sabrina Ionescu won the championship that eluded her in 2020 last year with the New York Liberty; maybe it’s Satou’s turn to complete some unfinished business.
However this season goes, the sky’s the limit for Satou Sabally, this week’s Finish Through Contact player of the week.
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