Minnesota Women’s Basketball: Carlie Wagner Selected By Minnesota Lynx in WNBA Draft

In a day that already saw the linking of one of the best players in Minnesota Gophers and Minnesota Lynx history, the Minnesota Lynx added to that link be selecting former Minnesota Golden Gophers guard Carlie Wagner with the 36th and final selection in the 2018 WNBA Draft.

Wagner will now join her former team’s new head coach on the WNBA Champion Minnesota Lynx. Well..at least for training camp. The WNBA has a strict roster limit of 12 players, so Wagner will need to beat out a few veterans and/or the other two players the Lynx selected in this year’s draft to make the team when it’s season starts in May.

Wagner is now the 7th Gopher selected in the WNBA draft and the third to be selected by the Lynx—all in the third and final round of the draft. Emily Fox was drafted in 2009 and never played a minute for the Lynx, and Shae Kelley was drafted in 2015 and had a cup of coffee with the team. The other four Gophers drafted into the WNBA were all first round selections and have had much more substantial professional careers. Those players include Rachel Banham, Amanda Zahui B, Janel McCarville, and of course Lindsay Whalen.

Wagner will go down in the Gopher history books like Whalen and Banham. She finished her career ranked third all-time at Minnesota in scoring (2,215), second in 3-pointers made (307), 3-pointers attempted (880), field goal attempts (2,109) and games in double figures (114), fourth in field goals made (820), free throw percentage (.786) and career starts (124), and sixth in scoring average (17.2).

Good luck to Carlie in the WNBA and hopefully she can team up with Lindsay to form a dynamic Gopher duo on the Lynx this season.