Oregon Star Sabrina Ionescu Puts WNBA on Hold, Returns to Ducks for Senior Season
Oregon junior guard Sabrina Ionescu has chosen to return for her senior season rather than enter the 2019 WNBA draft, she announced on Saturday.
Ionescu was projected as potentially the No. 1 pick in the draft had she declared. She had 24 hours after the Ducks' 72–67 loss to Baylor in the Final Four on Friday night to decide if she would enter the draft or return to school.
She announced her decision in a piece for The Player's Tribune.
"I came back to the University of Oregon as a junior in 2018-2019. We made the Final Four," she wrote. "And now I couldn’t be happier to announce that I’m coming back to the University of Oregon for the 2019-2020 basketball season.
I won’t predict exactly how far we’re going to go….. but I’ll just say this.
We have unfinished business. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart."
The junior holds the NCAA record for career triple doubles (18) and is a two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year. She won the Wade Trophy this season, awarded by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association for national player of the year, and a second straight Nancy Lieberman Award given to the nation's top point guard in women's basketball. Sports Illustrated's Joan Niesen profiled Ionescu this winter and her rise as a triple-double machine.
Ionescu averaged a career-high 19.9 points, 8.2 assists and 7.4 rebounds per game during her junior season. The Ducks reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament during Ionescu's first two seasons at Oregon and advanced to the Final Four this year. During her three seasons at Oregon, Ionescu scored 1,984 career points with 792 assists and 756 rebounds.
The WNBA draft is on Wednesday, April 10 in New York City.
