Indiana tabs Gamecocks' Boston No. 1 in WNBA Draft

South Carolina's Aliyah Boston was chosen with the first overall selection in the 2023 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever on Monday night.

Boston, a two-time SEC Player of the Year and the 2022 National Player of the Year, thus became the eighth SEC player in conference history to be the first player chosen overall. It was the second year in a row that a SEC player was the first player chosen, after Kentucky's Rhyne Howard was the No. 1 pick last year by the Atlanta Dream.

A total of nine SEC players were chosen overall in Monday's three-round draft that consisted of 12 picks per round.

After Boston, the next SEC player chosen was her South Carolina teammate, Laeticia Amihere, who went No. 8 overall in the first round to Atlanta. Tennessee's Jordan Horston was next, taken by the Seattle Storm with the very next pick, No. 9 overall, and Horston was followed by yet another South Carolina product in point guard Zia Cooke, who went 10th to the L.A. Sparks.

In the second round of the draft, LSU's LaDazhia Williams went to Indiana with the 17th overall selection and her teammate, Alexis Morris, went 22nd to the Connecticut Sun. Brea Beal of South Carolina closed out the second round when she was tabbed as the final pick of the round, 24th overall, by Minnesota.

With the first pick of the third and final round, Indiana made Victoria Saxton the fifth South Carolina player selected and the 25th pick overall. And the draft that began with the selection of an SEC player in Boston ended with the Las Vegas Aces making Alabama's Brittany Davis the 36th and final pick of the night.

The SEC has now had at least one first-round pick every year except one (2014).

Boston became the 180th SEC player drafted for the professional league since the inaugural WNBA Draft in 1997.

The other SEC players selected first overall in previous WNBA Drafts were Dena Head (1997 - Tennessee), Chamique Holdsclaw (1999 - Tennessee), LaToya Thomas (2003 - Mississippi State), Seimone Augustus (2006 - LSU), Candace Parker (2008 - Tennessee) and Aja Wilson (2018 - South Carolina).

2023 WNBA Draft - SEC Players Only