From Deseret News archives:
Cougar forward fulfills dream
BYU's Anderson selected, traded on eventful draft day
Talk about moving around. Anderson ends up in a state she's never visited and with a team she knows little about — for now.
"It's always been my dream," said the 6-foot-1 forward of a WNBA career. "It's been a goal all along ever since I came in as a freshman."
Anderson averaged 18 points and seven-plus rebounds a game as a senior, earning co-MVP honors in the Mountain West Conference and honorable-mention All-American recognition. She broke the 1,000-point benchmark in career scoring this season.
Watching the draft broadcast with BYU teammates and coaches at the Marriott Center, Anderson saw she was selected by the Detroit Shock as the No. 17 overall pick — the third player chosen in the second round.
Minutes later, the NBA TV telecast reported that Anderson had been traded to the Minnesota Lynx, the same team that had selected LSU's Seimone Augustus as the No. 1 pick of the draft and Utah's Shona Thorburn at No. 7, resulting in the Lynx with three of the first 17 selections in the 2006 draft.
"I'm still in shock — it still hasn't hit me yet," she said of her selection and pro prospects.
Minnesota added Notre Dame's Megan Duffy in the third round, meaning Anderson is the only one of the four Lynx draftees who doesn't play guard.
The Lynx acquired Anderson and Detroit's second-round pick in 2007 for former Minnesota forward Jacquieline Batteast and the team's third-round pick in 2007.
The 6-foot-1 Colorado Springs, Colo., native who turned 22 last month was initially projected as a late second-round or early third-round pick in the draft, but the athletic lefty upped her stock with a strong showing at Monday's pre-draft camp in Boston against some 20 other top draft prospects.
In Minnesota, she'll join her former four-year rival in Thorburn, who like Anderson earned first-team all-MWC honors this season and was the league's co-MVP the previous year. The two had been involved in some terse back-and-forth comments going into the Utah-BYU championship game of the Mountain West tournament, but Anderson said she looked forward to teaming up with Thorburn.
"I had hoped to either play with her or against her in Boston," she said. But Thorburn watched the pre-draft camp from the sideline with a sore ankle.
They go to a Lynx team that has older standout players in center Tamika Williams and offseason acquisition Adrian Williams and a strong frontcourt nucleus of 2004 first-round draftees Nicole Ohlde and Venessa Hayden.
Anderson is just the second BYU player to be drafted in the 10-year history of the WNBA. Former Cougar standout Erin Thorn — a three-year player with the New York Liberty who spends her offseasons on coach Jeff Judkins' BYU staff as director of operations — was also a No. 17 pick herself in the 2003 WNBA draft, a second-round draft pick of the Liberty.
Another 2006 WNBA draftee with Utah ties is Oklahoma City University center Miriam Sy, who was selected in the third round — No. 33 overall — by the Washington Mystics. Sy played two years at Utah Valley State College.
E-mail: taylor@desnews.com
