Abby Meyers’ ‘amazing’ journey leads from Princeton to the WNBA
Abby Meyers’ ‘amazing’ journey leads from Princeton to the WNBA
"I think it's a great example to show the younger generation, hey, mid-major can be a stepping stool for you guys to get to that next level and potentially play pro."
Abby Meyers was watching from home on WNBA Draft night when the Dallas Wings selected her 11th overall, the penultimate pick of the first round.
Fortuitously, Meyers knew someone else who once played for the Wings – and Bella Alarie was already on her way over with a gift.
“We both grew up in the same area of Potomac, Maryland. She went to Princeton, I went to Princeton. She went to Dallas, I went to Dallas, and I swear I’m not following her,” Meyers said on a Zoom call Monday.
Then Meyers showed off the Wings shirt she was wearing. “She was really great. She gave me actually this crew neck sweatshirt I was able to rep that night.”
The Wings made Alarie the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft. She retired from the WNBA over the winter.
“She’s just been an amazing mentor, supporter in my journey just as I’ve been supporting her throughout her time,” Meyers said. “… She’s really just been great support the whole time, has great advice. I love her to death.”
Meyers spent a graduate year at Maryland, starting for a team that reached the Elite Eight, but the Tigers have every right to claim her as well. Princeton now has had two former players reach the WNBA in the past four years – both first-round picks – another way the program has set a towering standard for the Ivy League.
A former top-100 high school recruit in 2017, Meyers chose Princeton over Stanford, Northwestern and Michigan. As with all Ivy League athletes, her 2020-21 season was robbed from her due to the pandemic, but after two years of coming off the bench and one year of grinding behind the scenes, Meyers was ready to become the leader the Tigers needed in 2021-22. Princeton ran roughshod through the Ivy League, upset SEC champion Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and came a point away from stunning a terrific Indiana team in the Round of 32.
Unlike Alarie, a consensus first-round draft pick, Meyers spent one more season in college and grad-transferred home to Maryland. It’s safe to say her game translated well.
Meyers’ stat line for Princeton in 2021-22: 17.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.7 turnovers per game; 45 percent shooting from the field, 39.3 percent from three.
Meyers’ stat line for Maryland in 2022-23: 14.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.8 steals, 1.5 turnovers per game; 45.5 percent shooting from the field, 38.8 percent from three.
Perhaps most impressively, her assists shot up and her turnovers ticked down in tandem.
“I think you have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff at Maryland and the overall structure we were playing at this year in comparison to my prior years at Princeton,” Meyers said. “Maryland’s very fast-paced, run-and-gun. Four, really five-out offense. Allows us to be playmakers, allows us to run in an unstructured offense, make plays for ourselves.”
Wings president Greg Bibb had long been aware of Meyers at Princeton while the team was scouting Alarie. But Meyers undoubtedly helped her draft stock by moving up to an elite power-conference program with a daunting schedule.
Bibb compared Meyers with another Dallas draft pick, guard Lou Lopez Senechal, who followed four years at Fairfield with a grad year at mighty UConn.
“A little bit like Lou Lopez Senechal, when she took that step this year and went and played Power Five basketball and showed that she could not only look the part of being on the court but excel and thrive against the best college players, the best college programs in the nation, it kind of really solidified our viewpoint that she should be under consideration on our draft board,” Bibb said on draft night.
But could we envision a world where the fifth year is not a necessary “prove it” season for players like Meyers? Does Alarie have to be the exception to the rule, or could a mid-major powerhouse like Princeton – with the high schoolers they’re able to sign and the schedule Carla Berube has them play – produce more pro-ready talent?
Meyers pointed out the biggest hurdle: Until the WNBA expands from 12 teams, there aren’t enough roster spots to go around.
“There’s just so many amazing players and talent out there, right, there’s not enough teams for them,” she said.
“I know that I’m not the only one that can speak to being mid-major, going to Power Five. I think we just have a love for the game that’s just natural and we just push ourselves every day to be our best selves and reach our potential. I think it’s a great example to show the younger generation, hey, mid-major can be a stepping stool for you guys to get to that next level and potentially play pro.”
Having followed Alarie’s pro career, Meyers was excited to talk with the Wings during her pre-draft process. Whatever she said in her interview with the team clearly left a lasting imprint.
“Probably, in all of the years, in all of the interviews I’ve done, I’ve had the privilege of some phenomenal interviews with some young women – it’s definitely if not the best ever, one of the top two or three I’ve ever had,” Bibb said. “I mean, just blew our collective socks off in terms of the interview we had with her, and that really helped crystallize her place for us in that first round.”
Now the hard part will be to actually make the team. The Wings made six selections in all, counting a trade for the Washington Mystics’ fourth overall pick, Stephanie Soares – though Soares won’t be on the active roster in 2023 as she recovers from a torn ACL. Plenty of cuts are on the horizon to get the Wings’ roster down to 12 before their regular season begins May 20.
But considering Meyers has the shooting skill and positional size the Wings said they were looking for, along with their rave reviews about her leadership, she should have an inside track to a roster spot.
“I think she’s one of those players that makes everyone around her feel better and be better,” Bibb said.
For now, Meyers is still in College Park, sorting out how to wrap up the rest of her grad school semester. She still needs to pack. She’s met her fellow draft picks through Zoom calls only. The next phase of her life has barely begun.
“I think, I was actually (saying) today, that I don’t think it’s gonna really hit me as to how amazing my journey just collegiately has been, and now going from amateur to pro, until the day I retire,” Meyers said. “It was all happening so fast. Just grateful for the opportunities from the coaching staff and teams that saw something in me.
“Because at the end of the day I’m confident in what I can do, but … I still feel really just like a small person from a small town. As I said, grateful for the opportunity in the past year and a half, from Princeton to Maryland to now being a pro. It’s really cool, really cool. It’s gonna be a cool story to tell when I’m older.”
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Hi there, hello. It has been a while, so thanks for stopping by again.
It’s player movement season, with Rutgers recently landing its first transfer addition of the spring in guard Noah Fernandes and Seton Hall rumored to be close to adding Posh Alexander from St. John’s (after missing out on several other targets).
For now, I have two more editions of the newsletter planned to wind down Season 2:
Friday, April 21: On Grant Billmeier and NJIT
Friday, April 28: On Seton Hall