Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson continued her remarkable individual campaign on Tuesday night when she set the WNBA’s single-season rebounding record during her team’s crucial win over the Seattle Storm. Wilson finished the night with 21 points and seven rebounds, and now has 451 total rebounds this season.
Wilson needed just three boards on Tuesday to make history, and it didn’t take her long to get them. Less than five minutes into the game, Wilson pulled down a miss from Skylar Diggins-Smith to write her name into the record books yet again.
This is the second time that the rebounding record has been broken this summer. No. 7 overall pick Angel Reese surpassed future Hall of Famer Sylvia Fowles’ previous mark of 404 on Sept. 1 during the Chicago Sky’s loss to the Minnesota Lynx.
Single-season total rebounding record
Unfortunately, Reese was ruled out for the season a few days later due to a wrist injury and finished with 446 total rebounds. If Reese had remained healthy, it’s unlikely that Wilson would have caught her given the rookie’s dominance on the glass. Reese’s 13.1 rebounds per game still leads the league and will be the highest single-season average ever.
Wilson’s rebounding record happened just days after she became the first player in WNBA history to score 1,000 points in a season. She entered Tuesday averaging 27 points per game, which would be the highest single-season scoring average ever.
Thanks to Wilson, the Aces are finally rounding into form ahead of the playoffs. With Tuesday’s 85-72 victory over Seattle, Las Vegas has won eight of its last nine to get to 26-13 on the season. And the two-time defending champs still have an outside chance of catching the Connecticut Sun for the No. 3 seed in the playoffs.
Regardless of which seed they end up with, the Aces’ hopes of a threepeat look much better now than they did early in the season. As long as they have Wilson leading the way, they can beat anyone.
