On paper, UConn women’s basketball great Napheesa Collier had a quiet night in the Minnesota Lynx’s 94-70 rout of the Connecticut Sun on Saturday.
Collier wasn’t even the Lynx’s leading scorer in the victory, finishing with 17 points on 7-for-13 shooting, but the superstar made her presence felt even when it didn’t show in the box score. She took just four shots from the field in the first half with the Sun’s defense keyed in on her, allowing teammates Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith to heat up while bringing down four rebounds and dishing out a pair of assists.
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When Connecticut began to chip away at Minnesota’s lead in the second half, Collier immediately ramped up her aggression. She had seven points and four offensive rebounds in the third quarter alone, and she was a defensive anchor for the Lynx finishing with three blocks and two steals. In many ways it was a textbook Collier performance, all smooth, unforced dominance to power her team to victory.
Collier is having the best year of her career in her seventh professional season, leading the WNBA in scoring with 23.4 points per game on top of 7.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.6 blocks per game. Her current scoring average ranks seventh in WNBA history and is the second-highest in Lynx franchise history behind only fellow UConn legend Maya Moore‘s 23.8 points per game in 2014.
“I’m not surprised she’s doing any of this stuff. She was killing the practice players like that in college,” said Sun center Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who played alongside Collier at UConn in 2018-19. “To see her do it at this level, she’s just so consistent. I think that’s the one word to really describe Phee … She’s one of the lead-by-example type of leaders, and just the way that she put out in practice, her effort, it just carried on and translated directly into the game. That consistency she has is something I’ll always take away from just being able to see that when I was a freshman.”
Collier’s production is made even more impressive by her historic efficiency: She is the second player in the history of the WNBA (among those meeting the minimum requirements) to shoot better than 50% from the field, 36% from 3-point range and 90% at the free throw line, joining two-time MVP Elena Delle Donne in 2019 — the year she won her second MVP and led the Washington Mystics to their first championship. Collier also has the second-highest field goal percentage of any player to ever average at least 23 points per game in a season, currently shooting 53.1%.
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But there’s little pride in those individual accolades for Collier, the numbers and records and standout performances all existing in the background. Her mind has been on a single track since the start of 2025 — and really, since the moment her 2024 season ended in heartbreak: Winning her first WNBA title.
“I don’t know if proud is the word. I feel like I’m just going out there trying to win the games,” Collier said. “I’ve never really thought about it like that. I don’t know if I’ve developed any new skills. I’m just trying to get better at the things that I do, so being more aggressive, making sure that I have countermoves because there’s going to be more attention that naturally comes. So just getting better at the things that I’m doing already.”
Collier was hardly under the radar entering last season already a three-time All-Star, but 2024 marked her true breakthrough as one of the best players in the league. She was crowned Defensive Player of the Year, finished second in MVP voting behind three-time winner A’ja Wilson and was named to the All-WNBA first team unanimously for the first time in her career. She went on to lead the Lynx back to the WNBA Finals for the first time since Moore brought the franchise four titles in six years from 2012-17, but Minnesota came up just four points short in fifth and final game of the series to lose the championship to the New York Liberty.
That loss has fueled Collier’s MVP campaign in 2025, the statistics coming as a product of her unwavering desire to win. But though she’s still the betting favorite to win the league’s highest honor, Collier’s season hasn’t come without its obstacles. She missed 10 games in August after suffering an ankle sprain against the Las Vegas Aces on Aug. 2, marking the most time she’s ever missed during a season due to injury.
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Collier may not feel fully herself yet with just three games behind her since the injury, but it has rarely shown on the court. She returned in dominant fashion 32 points on 68% shooting plus nine rebounds, two assists and two steals in a win over the Indiana Fever last Sunday, and she has logged nine boards in every appearance since the injury. Collier had her worst shooting night of the season when she shot 30.4% against the Seattle Storm on Thursday, but she immediately rebounded to hit 53.8% against the Sun.
“It’s really hard especially at the end of the season where you’re fighting for playoff positioning, and we had a really hard stretch (of games),” Collier said. “I wanted to be out there for those things, so that was hard, but I had to take the time to get my body right, and I’m just glad that I can be here now.”
