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South Carolina’s Brea Beal entering 2023 WNBA Draft: Why her stock may be rising, where she may land – The Athletic
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South Carolina guard Brea Beal is entering the 2023 WNBA Draft, she announced on social media Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know:
The Athletic has live coverage of the 2023 WNBA Draft.
🫶🏽 pic.twitter.com/R0t3Xp4zvA
— Brea Beal (@QueenBrea_1) April 4, 2023
Throughout her career, Beal has primarily been known as a defensive player, becoming one of the best perimeter defenders in the game. While she hasn’t always had a chance to show the offensive side of her game, it has always been there. After all, she and Candace Parker are the only three-time Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year award recipients and you don’t win that award while only excelling at one end of the court.
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This season, in lower volumes, Beal displayed an expanded offensive game. She attempted fewer than three 3s a game but hit 38 percent of them. And if you take out the Iowa Final Four game, she was 6-of-13 from that range during the NCAA Tournament. Is that enough to make a general manager that wasn’t interested suddenly change their mind about Beal? Probably not. But for a franchise that might’ve been on the fence about how much work her offensive game would need, it was a step in the right direction. — Jennings
Despite her expanded offensive game, I still see her ending up with a defensive-minded team, with Dallas and Indiana coming to mind. She would be a good fit in both of those systems as a big guard who can play immediately, fit into a system and defend well. Dawn Staley runs her program with a professional mindset, so franchisees know exactly what they’re getting when they draft a Gamecock — someone who’s going to come to work, do their job and work to get better.
I don’t see the Wings using the No. 3 or No. 5 pick on Beal, but if the Fever don’t pick her up at No. 7, maybe they’d take her with their 11th pick. — Jennings
(Photo: Jeff Blake / USA Today)
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