The WPBA held their combine in Phoenix on Friday and Saturday, offering players the opportunities to work with coaches and trainers with a variety of backgrounds and play in front of agents, scouts, and coaches. After final additions to the roster, there were 40 players participating in total. Fitting the goals of the event, there were players who had just finished college careers at a variety of levels, other players looking to jumpstart their careers, and more established professionals trying to get to the next level. They were divided into five teams using team names from the league in order to build chemistry for the game portions of the event.
Day 1
Players were able to use the courts and work with trainers before the scheduled events began on Friday. Once everyone gathered, the group warmed up together to prepare for the drills section of the combine. Coaches and trainers with a variety of backgrounds were involved, including two coaches with significant WNBA experience in Bridget Pettis and Fred Williams. Shooting drills came first before Offensive Advantage drills gave players reps in 3v2 and 2vs1 situations. Players were then separated into post, wing, and guard positional groups and each given a court to work on drills specific to those roles.
One main issue in tryout or combine events is getting players who had never played with each other to build team chemistry quickly enough to make any scrimmage or game play a meaningful experience to evaluate player performance. The solution in this event was to set teams beforehand, including assigning coaches, giving them dedicated time to work together before that portion of the schedule. On this day, that included rotation through different sets of drills and 3v3 games within each team to build familiarity. After those exercises, the first day scrimmages were played. Each team played the other teams with staff serving as referees and they were timed for fifteen minutes with no stoppages, even to shoot free throws.
Day 2
The second day of the event was geared towards games, but players continued to have opportunities to work with their coaches and trainers. After an introductory speech from Fred Williams, there were six slots for games. Each game was twenty minutes with three referees and each team got to play against each of the other teams. Twenty players were chosen at the end of the day for the showcase game.
Select Game
Fred Williams and Bridget Pettis introduced the players who were selected for the final showcase game as they were each coaching a team. The game was forty minutes, but the clock did not stop in either half. Substitutions were timed to get all of the chosen players approximately equal playing time. Team Williams took the lead early and led 32-25 at halftime. Team Pettis made a run in the second half to tie the score, but could not get over the hump, falling behind again and losing 53-48.
Team Williams: Sacha Washington (Phoenix), Kayden Lawson (Reign), Adrianna Smith (Blaze), Benthe Versteeg (Blaze), Hayleigh Breland (Phoenix), Jessenia Lawson (Wolves), Jakayla Johnson (Reign), Cordasia Harris (Reign), Izabella Zingaro (Blaze), Mya Perry (Swish)
Team Pettis: Last-Tear Poa (Phoenix), Kharyssa Richardson (Swish), Chandler Prater (Blaze), Jennifer Levine (Reign), Aniya McDonald-Perry (Wolves), Nette Howard (Swish), Tatum Thompson (Phoenix), Brooklyn Gray (Phoenix), Nevaeh Asiasi (Reign), Kaylen Nelson (Swish)
Upcoming Season
Different players entered the event with different goals and will be headed in different directions. Some of the players will be playing in this WPBA season when it starts in June while others will get WNBA consideration or play in leagues that are more local to them over the summer. The main goal for many of them will be to participate in international leagues that follow a more typical calendar that starts in the fall.
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