A'ja Wilson set records. So did Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. WNBA stats in 2024 were eye-popping

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A'ja Wilson set records. So did Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. WNBA stats in 2024 were eye-popping

2024-09-20 21:50 Last Updated At：22:01

A’ja Wilson had a season like none other in WNBA history. Caitlin Clark set records and made the Indiana Fever the biggest draw in the women’s game. Angel Reese rebounded like nobody the league has ever seen.

The WNBA regular season is over. And the stat sheets were filled like never before.

Lots of records — most points, most rebounds, most assists, even most people at a game — fell during the WNBA’s 28th regular season. Wilson, Clark and Reese were in the middle of many of those moments.

Here’s a look at some big numbers from the season:

Wilson did things this season that have never been done in the WNBA. (And never been officially done in the NBA, either.)

Most points in a season, most rebounds in a season and most blocked shots in a season. That’s never happened by one player in one year, until now. The Las Vegas star set WNBA records with 1,021 points and 451 rebounds, plus led the league in blocks with 98.

Another record for Wilson: points per game with 26.9, breaking Diana Taurasi’s mark of 25.3 that stood since 2006. WNBA teams didn’t always play 40-game seasons, so 1,000 points wasn’t even a remote possibility in the days of shorter schedules. The scoring-average record takes away any debate from where Wilson’s 2024 season should rank.

It seems certain that she’s going to be MVP for a record-tying third time. The only real question is whether she gets all the votes. “U’nanimous,” Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo said on social media last week, and it didn’t need any explaining.

Clark broke the WNBA single-game record for assists with 19, broke the season record for assists with 337 and finished her rookie Indiana season with a resume of averages beyond compare.

Others have scored more, rebounded more and one player — Courtney Vandersloot — has averaged more assists in a season. But nobody in WNBA history ever averaged as much in all three categories as Clark this season: 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game.

There have been only four other instances of a player averaging 15-5-5 in the WNBA. Clark is the first in the 19-5-8 club.

Clark also had 12 games of at least 10 points and 10 assists, another single-season record. Only eight players in WNBA history have more such games in their entire careers.

Clark also had two triple-doubles in her rookie season. No other rookie in WNBA history has ever had one. And her 122 3-pointers — the second-most by anyone in any WNBA season — was another rookie record.

Reese would have set the WNBA record for rebounds in a season had she not missed Chicago’s final six games, citing a wrist injury. (She had the record briefly with 446, before Wilson caught her toward the end of the regular season.)

The rebounds-per-game record is hers though: 13.1, which is 10% higher than the previous mark of 11.9 set by Sylvia Fowles in 2018.

Reese’s 26 double-doubles were another rookie record; Tina Charles had 22 (in a 34-game season) in 2010. There were six instances in the WNBA this season of someone grabbing 18 or more rebounds; Reese had five of them.

Last season, 227,979 tickets were sold for Indiana Fever games. This season, the number was 643,343.

That’s a 182% jump. That’s Caitlinmania.

WNBA attendance soared to a level not seen since the late 1990s this season, with around 9,800 tickets distributed on average for each game. That’s up nearly 44% from last season, and the huge increase in Fever tickets accounts for the overwhelming majority of that leaguewide growth.

The Fever destroyed the previous WNBA record for average attendance; 16,084 tickets, on average, were sold for Indiana games (both home and away) this season, way ahead of the previous mark of 13,398 set by the 1998 New York Liberty.

And Thursday, as the season closed, Clark was involved in another record: 20,711 attended Indiana’s game at the Washington Mystics, a WNBA all-time regular season mark.

Where she went, fans followed: There were 37 games this season that drew crowds of 16,000 or more, and 32 of them were Indiana games.

— Atlanta’s Tina Charles became the WNBA’s all-time leader in rebounds (4,014) and double-doubles (194), getting those marks with a 10-point, 10-rebound effort Thursday as the regular season ended. She passed Sylvia Fowles on both of those lists.

— Dallas’ Arike Ogunbowale was already the league’s record-holder for minutes in a season (1,493 in 2023), and this year she broke the record for minutes per game that Katie Smith held since 2001. Ogunbowale — who also tied the WNBA single-game record for 3-pointers with nine against Indiana on Sept. 1 — averaged 38.58 minutes; Smith’s record was 38.56. If Ogunbowale played one fewer minute this season, Smith would still hold the mark.

— Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier had eight steals in a game against Los Angeles on June 14. The last time a WNBA player had more steals in a game? July 10, 2003, when Ticha Penichiero had a league-record 10 for Sacramento.

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Lindsey Vonn takes a low-risk approach and places 14th in her return to World Cup skiing at age 40

2024-12-21 22:19 Last Updated At：22:21

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland (AP) — Lindsey Vonn was not about to put everything on the line in her first World Cup race back after more than five years of retirement.

Not with her history of crashes and injuries.

Not with her new titanium knee.

Not at age 40.

Vonn took a low-risk approach and finished 14th in a super-G on Saturday, crossing 1.18 seconds behind Austrian winner Cornelia Huetter.

“This was the perfect start,” Vonn said. “Today is just the first step and I’m not looking for more. Today I really needed to get to the finish. I wanted to have a solid result. And that’s exactly what I did.

“There’s definitely a lot that I have left to give," Vonn added. "Today was not the day to try to do anything special.”

Still, when Vonn came down, the crowd of Swiss-flag-waving fans turned silent in anticipation and all of the other top skiers watched her run on a perfectly clear day in the Alps.

“To have her back on the world stage is just fantastic,” said Sophie Goldschmidt, president and CEO of U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “Just the attention she’s bringing to the sport and the role model she is — it’s a big day.

“These kind of moments transcend outside of just sports. We see it with Mikaela (Shiffrin) and what she’s done recently, which is just superhuman as well, setting all those records."

Vonn lost time early in her run but nearly matched the top finishers in the middle and bottom section of the Corviglia course.

When she reached the finish and saw her time, Vonn flashed a wide smile and waved to the crowd.

“I didn’t risk anything with the line. I was a little bit conservative in some sections, but overall I skied really well. Now I just need my top section to be a little faster and I’ll be in really good shape,” said Vonn, who is planning to race another super-G in St. Moritz on Sunday.

Vonn finished less than a second off the podium, which also included Olympic champion Lara Gut-Behrami in second place, 0.18 behind Huetter, and Sofia Goggia in third, 0.33 back.

“I’m really close to being there," Vonn said. "I’m just not quite there yet.”

Vonn started No. 31 under a new wild card rule for former champions. But that still meant going after all of the current top-ranked skiers had raced.

“The course was a little bit bumpy when I went and so some sections I was a little bit more conservative with my line," she said. “But in some sections I was really fast.”

Vonn had to cut her career short in 2019 due to a series of crashes and injuries, but then she had knee replacement surgery in April and had two titanium pieces inserted into her right knee. Her knee feels better than it has in years, so she decided to come back.

“The last few years of my career were so much different than they are right now," Vonn said. "I’m skiing without thinking about my knee, which I really haven’t done since I first tore my ACL in 2013. So it’s been a long time that I felt this good and I’m a little bit older, but honestly, I’m a hell of a lot stronger than I once was.”

Eight-time overall World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher also took advantage of the wild card rule and returned this season after five years away. But then Hirscher tore his left ACL while training in giant slalom and announced earlier this month that his comeback season was done.

Vonn left the tour with 82 World Cup wins — the record for a woman at the time and within reach of the then all-time Alpine mark of 86 held by Swedish standout Ingemar Stenmark. The women’s record held by Vonn was eclipsed last year by Shiffrin, who now has an outright record 99 wins.

Shiffrin, who shares the record of five wins in St. Moritz with Vonn, isn’t racing this weekend as she recovers from abdominal surgery to clean out a puncture wound she sustained in a crash last month.

Vonn is attempting to enter unchartered territory in terms of success at an advanced age in women’s skiing.

The oldest woman to win a World Cup race was Federica Brignone, the Italian who won the giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, in October to start this season, at age 34.

“It’s super impressive,” said Vonn’s U.S. teammate Jacqueline Wiles, noting that Vonn didn’t have as much preseason preparation as other skiers. “If anybody could do it, she could. The more she gets comfortable and gets kind of back up to speed, she’s going to be right in there.”

So will Vonn charge harder on Sunday?

“Step by step,” Vonn said. “Patience.”

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing