Former UConn women’s basketball All-American Napheesa Collier has been a frontrunner for the WNBA MVP award all season, and Thursday night she finished off her regular season in historic style.
The 6-foot-1 forward, who is now in her seventh professional season with the Minnesota Lynx, recorded just the second 50-40-90 season in WNBA history, joining Elena Delle Donne, who accomplished the feat in 2019 with the Washington Mystics.
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Collier went into Thursday’s regular season finale shooting 39.1% from 3-point range, needing to make at least three more 3-pointers to reach the 40% mark. She finished 3-for-4 for the game to put her at 40.3% for the season.
She is shooting 53.1% from the field overall and 90.6% from the free throw line.
Collier becomes the first player in WNBA history to finish the regular season shooting 50-40-90 and also averaging more than 20 points per game.
Collier will go into the playoffs for the No. 1-seeded Lynx averaging 22.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.6 steals.
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“It’s only been done once before, and that player was the MVP,” Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said after the Lynx 72-53 victory over the Golden State Valkyries, according to ESPN. “Phee deserves that recognition. The numbers don’t lie. It is done from start to finish. 50-40-90 is historic. I don’t know how long it will be before it happens again.
“Napheesa Coller has been the best player in the WNBA. She deserves MVP.”
During Della Donne’s 2019 season, she shot 51.5% from the field, 43.0% from 3-point range and 97.4 from the free throw line while average 19.5 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game for the Mystics, who won the regular season title by three games over the Connecticut Sun.
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That was also Della Donne’s seventh season in the WNBA, and Collier’s first season.
This is the first season of Collier’s career that she has shot 90% or better from the free throw line, the second time she has surpassed 50% from the field and the second time she has eclipsed the 40% mark from behind the arc.
Making her feat more impressive this year was the fact that she missed 10 games with injuries.
During her second season in the WNBA in 2020, she had a 52.3 field goal percentage, a 40.8 3-point percentage and an 82-9 free throw percentage. This season she set career highs for shooting percentage from the field and the charity stripe as well as points per game.
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Efficiency is nothing new for Collier, who finished her UConn career with a 61.3 field goal percentage over four years while also shooting 33.9% from 3-point range and 77.3% from the free throw line.
When she graduated, she was the third-leading scorer in UConn history with 2,401 points, but she is now fourth on that all-time list as she was passed by Paige Bueckers (2,439) last season.
The only other UConn players to score more during their Husky careers were Maya Moore (3,036) and Breanna Stewart (2,676).
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The Lynx begin the playoffs Sunday with a 1 p.m. home game against the Valkeries.
Sep 12, 2025
Reporter
Roger Cleaveland is a reporter for CT Insider with the responsibilities of providing coverage from both the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams as well as local feature stories from the Greater Waterbury area. He joins Hearst Connecticut Media Group in 2025 after spending the last 41 years working for the Waterbury Republican-American. He has covered the UConn women’s basketball team for the past 30 years, and the UConn men for the past five seasons. Previously he covered New York Giants and Jets home NFL games for a decade and the Hartford Whalers for another decade. When not working, his priority is spending time with his wife, his two children and his two grandchildren.
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