Sports
Moore, Augustus, McWilliams-Franklin part of '24 Hall of Fame class – ESPN
Maya Moore and Seimone Augustus, who together won four WNBA titles with the Minnesota Lynx, will headline the inductees into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in April.
They will be joined by another former Lynx teammate, Taj McWilliams-Franklin.
Moore led UConn to perfect seasons and national championships in 2009 and 2010, then was selected as the No. 1 pick in the 2011 WNBA draft. She joined Augustus, who was the No. 1 pick in 2006 out of LSU, with the Lynx. Minnesota then made the WNBA Finals six of the next seven seasons, winning titles in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017.
McWilliams-Franklin was on the 2011 Lynx title team with Moore and Augustus. She previously had won WNBA titles with the Detroit Shock in 2006 and 2008.
Moore and Augustus also were Olympic teammates, winning gold medals on the 2012 and 2016 U.S. squads. Augustus also won gold with the 2008 U.S. team.
Moore was a three-time winner of the Wade Trophy at UConn, where she is the all-time leading scorer (3,036 points) and went to the Final Four all four seasons.
In eight seasons in the WNBA, the 2014 MVP averaged 18.4 points and 5.9 rebounds.
She stepped away from basketball after the 2018 season to work on social justice issues and the legal case of her eventual husband, Jonathan Irons, who was freed after being wrongly imprisoned for more than 20 years. Moore officially announced her retirement in January.
Augustus was the consensus national player of the year in 2005 and 2006, leading LSU to the Final Four from 2004 to 2006. In the WNBA, she averaged 15.4 points in 15 seasons, all but one with the Lynx.
McWilliams-Franklin, the 1993 NAIA player of the year for St. Edward’s, averaged 11.4 points and 6.8 rebounds in her 14 WNBA seasons.
Joining that trio in the 2024 WBHOF induction class are veteran player Rita Gail Easterling, NBA/WNBA/college official Violet Palmer and coaches Sue Phillips and Roonie Scovel.
Easterling played for Mississippi College from 1973 to 1977, making the 1974 AIAW national championship game. She also played in the Women’s Professional Basketball League, one of the forerunners of the WNBA, from 1978 to 1981.
Phillips spent 28 seasons at Archbishop Mitty High in California, where she had a 761-165 record. She also coached numerous Under-17 and U-16 USA Basketball girls teams. Scovel was longtime coach of Gulf Coast State College in Florida, where she won six junior college national championships and had a record of 646-91.
“We are thrilled to pay tribute to seven pioneers and legends of this great game,” Dana Hart, president of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, said. “We celebrate them as the [hall] commemorates its 25th anniversary.”
The WBHOF, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, also will recognize Cheyney University as the “Trailblazer of the Game” recipient. Cheyney is the only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to have won a women’s NCAA Division I regional title, going to the Final Four in 1982 and 1984.
The “For the Love of the Game” award will go to the Afghan Resettlement Program, a group of 13 coaches and players from Afghanistan that risked its life to play basketball.
The induction ceremony will be April 27, 2024, at the Tennessee Theater in downtown Knoxville.
