I started playing WNBA fantasy games this summer just for kicks. At $1 a game, I’m not all that invested in the outcomes. But it’s been a great way to learn more about and watch the progress of some of the rising stars in the WNBA. Ironically, one rising star who has caught my eye night after night this summer is an 8-year veteran, Chicago Sky guard Allie Quigley.
Allie Quigley scored more than 2,000 points at DePaul.
The DePaul alumnus is averaging a career-high 17 points, 3.6 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game. She’s also shooting a career-best 52.9 from the floor and 47.1 percent from three (more than 10 games played). She leads the league in 3-point shooting percentage and is eighth in field goal percentage.
She not only made the WNBA all-star team and scored 14 points off the bench, she won the 3-point shooting contest. Seattle’s Sue Bird, who played with Quigley in Seattle back in 2012, was one of the competitors eliminated in the opening round of the three-point contest. She says she picked Quigley to win.
“I thought so too,” echoed Diana Taurasi in an interview after the game.
Quigley has been kicking around the WNBA since she graduated from DePaul in 2008. At DePaul, she was one of only four players to reach the 2,000-point plateau. Quigley was selected by Seattle with the No. 22 overall pick in the 2008 draft. She bounced around from Phoenix to Indiana to San Antonio, and back to Seattle, but she only played in a total of 35 WNBA games. Overseas, meanwhile, she enjoyed the most success in Hungary, where she averaged 16 points a game in 2010, 2011 and 2012. After three seasons in Hungary, she applied for and was granted dual citizenship, making her eligible to play for the Hungarian National team in 2012.
Allie Quigley takes it to the rim in a game for the Hungarian National team.
The Sky certainly do miss Delle Donne, and their current 12-16 record reflects that. But they have gone 8-4 since July 1 and Quigley is one of the big reasons why.
DePaul coach Doug Bruno says Quigley’s persistence is “legendary.”
Coach Bruno didn’t necessarily predict WNBA stardom, but he certainly isn’t surprised by Quigley’s success. Bruno, who played ball at DePaul with Quigley’s high school coach, Mike Gillespie, had been hearing about her since she was a fifth grader. “She was one of those kids at camp whose ball always goes in,” he recalls of the young Allie Quigley.
When it came time to seriously start recruiting her, Bruno recalls that his assistant at the time, Maggie Dixon, wondered if Quigley had the all-around game to play at the Division I level. But Bruno, being a local guy, knew about her basketball pedigree. The whole Quigley clan is legendary around Joliet, Illinois, including her two brothers and her younger sister Sam. Allie’s mother Chris was a “storied athlete” from Joliet, whose number was retired by The University of St. Francis in 1983.
“Everyone in Joliet tells us she’s the best athlete they ever had,” Allie told ESPN in 2013. “She’s even on a mural in town.”
Allie’s father, Pat Quigley, died when Allie was 8 years old. He too was a University of St. Francis grad, and the school renamed their basketball court the Pat Quigley court after his death. The family pedigree — and her lights out shooting — convinced Bruno that a 5-10, 140-pound guard could make it at DePaul.
“You can say she’s only a shooter, but she’s a shooter with strength,” he says. “Defenders think they can junkyard dog guard her. She can get to the rim before they realize it’s a mistake.”
Now that WNBA defenders are taking her seriously, Quigley is still shooting lights out, but she’s also finding other ways to help the team. On Aug. 10, she dished out a career-high 9 assists to go along with her 19 points to help Chicago defeat San Antonio.
“Some kids, when they don’t make it, say it was all politics,” says Coach Bruno. “You can blame that or you can hunker down, get in the frickin gym, and do the work to make them HAVE to keep you…that’s what Allie did.”
Finding a Way to Play 