Minnesota Lynx teammates Alissa Pili & Ruthy Hebard from Alaska.
Linked by Alaska and connected by generational talent, the basketball careers of Alissa Pili and Ruthy Hebard have run parallel to each other for years.
Both were three-time Gatorade Alaska Player of the Year selections and 2,000-point scorers in high school.
Both were chosen among the ‘50 Greatest Pac-12 Players’ and piled up 2,000 points in college.
And both were selected with the eighth pick in the WNBA Draft – Hebard by Chicago in 2020 and Pili by Minnesota two days ago.
Pili, of Anchorage, and Hebard, of Fairbanks, are separated by three years and never faced off in high school and met only once in college on Feb. 20, 2020, when Hebard and Oregon beat Pili and USC in a season shortened by COVID.
Hebard, a senior First Team All-American, finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds and two steals. Pili, the Pac-12’s Freshman of the Year, produced 14 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals. They both started and they both played 36 minutes.
Rivals on the court but friends off it, Hebard and Pili hugged in the handshake line after the game in a true sign of respect. Later, they met for a photo in a picture that made up half of Alaska basketball’s Mount Rushmore.
After that season, Hebard went on to play in the WNBA with the Chicago Sky (winning a title in 2021) while Pili went on to leave USC for Utah, where she resurrected her career and became a top-10 draft pick.
Hebard had signed with the Minnesota Lynx as a free agent two months before the draft and going into Monday night Minnesota had the No. 8 pick, which was about where Pili was projected to go. The idea of two Alaskans playing in the WNBA at the same time was cool and something that hadn’t happened since 2013, but the idea of Alaska teammates was a dream scenario that played out live from New York.
When Pili’s name was called, it caused an earthquake-type reaction that shook Alaskans.
Pili to Minnesota Lynx at 8 👏🏻🔥 now the Lynx have Ruthy Hebard & Pili — two Alaskan legends of the female game
— B$ (@AK_BMONEY) April 16, 2024
Round 1 Pick 8… I love it! Congrats! @alissa_pili making Alaska proud 🥳🥳
— Ruthy Hebard (@RuthyHebard24) April 16, 2024
Ruthy & Alissa on the same team is OD 🔥 #907
— Jalil Abdul-Bassit (@ValidJab) April 16, 2024
free business tip, if I were an anchorage bar/restaurant I would be making plans to announce we’ll be showing lynx games this summer
— chanda (@akclee) April 16, 2024
Minnesota’s first preseason game is May 4 and then the Pili & Hebard collab officially drops Tuesday, May 14 in Seattle as the Lynx face the Storm on the WNBA’s opening night.
Pili and Hebard are both forwards, but each player brings a unique skill set to the court.
Pili is a 6-foot-2 polished scorer who can hit 3-pointers and finish at the rim in traffic, thanks to fabulous footwork and a lavish layup package that allows her to convert against taller defenders. She is a force of nature.
Pili is arguably Alaska’s most gifted scorer, a walking bucket since her freshman year at Dimond High and the first Division I player from the state to have 700 points in a season.
She’s also the most entertaining; from power and precision to playmaking and the way she palms the ball.
Hebard is a 6-foot-4 defensive and rebounding specialist who owns four career double-doubles in the WNBA – more than the rest of the players from Alaska combined. She is graceful, gutsy and a consummate pro who is eager to do the dirty work, which explains why she’s entering her fifth year in the league and knocking on the door of 100 career games.
Hebard’s role isn’t to score, but whoever thinks she isn’t an offensive threat has had a basketball dribbled off their head too many times because her career FG% (.575) and FT% (.743) rank No. 1 among Alaskans to play in the WNBA.
She is a two-time Katrina McClain Award winner who holds the NCAA record for consecutive field goals (33). She also had 55 career double-doubles at Oregon and bagged 18 points and 11 rebounds against Team USA in 2019 when the Ducks handed the national team its first loss to a college team in 20 years.
In 2020, she scored 22 points against Dallas. In 2021 she had three double-doubles with a season high of 18 points and helped Chicago with a WNBA title.
At every level, Hebard has found a way to score. So has Pili. That’s another thing they have in common.
This isn’t the first time Alaskans have been teammates at the pro level.
In the NHL, Anchorage’s Scott Gomez and Brandon Dubinsky skated for the New York Rangers for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons.
Then it happened again with the Tampa Bay Lightning as Anchorage’s Matt Carle and Nate Thompson were teammates for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.
We’ve been close in the NFL and NBA.
In 2014, offensive lineman Daryn Colledge of North Pole played his final season for the Miami Dolphins before he retired. That offseason the team signed defensive back Zack Bowman of Anchorage.
In 2002, Anchorage’s Trajan Langdon left the Cleveland Cavaliers after the season and a few months later the team drafted Carlos Boozer of Juneau.