Anna Christine Wilson (born July 12, 1997) is an American former

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player for the

Stanford Cardinal The Stanford Cardinal are the athletic teams that represent Stanford University. As of June, 2022, Stanford's program has won 131 NCAA team championships. Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship each academic year for 46 consecutive ...

of the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

. A

guard Guard or guards may refer to: Professional occupations * Bodyguard, who protects an individual from personal assault * Crossing guard, who stops traffic so pedestrians can cross the street * Lifeguard, who rescues people from drowning * Prison ...

, Wilson holds the team record for most games played over a career with 160, the fourth-most in the history of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA). At the

2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship for Women The 2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship for Women (Czech:Mistrovství světa FIBA žen do 17 let 2014)was an international basketball competition held in Klatovy and Plzeň, Czech Republic, from 28 June to 6 July 2014. It was the third edition of ...

, Wilson won a gold medal as a part of

Team USA The United States national team or Team USA may refer to any of a number of sports team representing the United States in international competitions. Olympic teams Additionally, these teams may compete in other international competitions such as ...

. Wilson played three seasons of high school basketball for Collegiate School, where she set the team record for career assists with 246 and had the fifth-most points in team history with 735. Moving to play as a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

for the Bellevue High School Wolverines, Wilson and the team finished the year with an undefeated season and won the 2016 Class 3A girls state championship. She was named to the

McDonald's All-American Game The McDonald's All-American Game is the all-star basketball game played each year for American and Canadian boys' and girls' high school basketball graduates. Consisting of the top players, each team plays a single exhibition game after the concl ...

, an all-star girls' basketball game composed of many top-ranked American and Canadian high school basketball graduating seniors. At Stanford, Wilson played primarily a bench role until her fifth-year senior season. As a fifth-year senior, she started every game, was named the Pac-12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year and made the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team, and won the 2021 NCAA Division I national championship with the Cardinal. She finished her career with Stanford in 2022 after six seasons, and again made the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team. After college, Wilson declared for the 2022 WNBA draft, where she went unselected. Her brother Russell is a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquart ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

who won

Super Bowl XLVIII Super Bowl XLVIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos and National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for th ...

with the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

Early life and high school career

Anna Christine Wilson was born on July 12, 1997 in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, to Tammy and Harrison Wilson III, her mother a nurse and her father a lawyer. Her father played American football and baseball at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. Anna's grandmother was a college professor and her uncle graduated from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. By age five, Anna began playing

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, and, as she got older, her father coached her at a local

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

before he died when she was 12. Wilson participated in the United States Under-16 national team trials in 2013. She won a gold medal at the

as the United States defeated Spain in the final, 77–75; Wilson played 3:05 minutes and missed her only

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

attempted. She attended Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia before she moved to

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as a s ...

for her

year. At Collegiate, she modeled how she played after

Steve Nash Stephen John Nash (born 7 February 1974) is a Canadian professional basketball coach and former player who most recently served as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 18 seasons in the NBA, ...

. After three seasons, she held Collegiate's career assists record with 246 and had the fifth-most points in team history with 735. For the Bellevue High School Wolverines, Wilson was voted a captain of the team by her teammates. She played as a

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the five Basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run t ...

, and averaged 15.3

points per game Points per game, often abbreviated PPG, is the average number of points scored by a player per game played in a sport, over the course of a series of games, a whole season, or a career. It is calculated by dividing the total number of points by nu ...

, 3.2 steals per game, and 4.6 assists per game as Bellevue finished with an undefeated record and won a Class 3A girls state championship.

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

HoopGurlz ranked Wilson as a five-star prospect and the 42nd-best player in the United States while recruiting website Prospects Nation ranked Wilson as the 34th-best player and as a four-star prospect. She graduated high school in 2016. Wilson was selected for the

, an all-star girls' basketball game which comprised many of the top-ranked American and Canadian high school basketball graduating seniors and was played the same day as a counterpart boys' game. Before the match, Wilson suffered a

concussion A concussion, also known as a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), is a head injury that temporarily affects brain functioning. Symptoms may include loss of consciousness (LOC); memory loss; headaches; difficulty with thinking, concentration, ...

in practice, which was her third; consequently, Wilson did not play in the game. As a high school

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In ...

, she verbally committed to attend and play for

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and had offers from Wake Forest,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, Marquette,

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

College career

Wilson only played in six games during her

freshman A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

year with the

due to health issues: she missed the first eleven games as she recovered from her concussion, and missed the final eleven games of the season with a right foot injury. She made her Stanford debut against the

Yale Bulldogs The Yale Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in ...

, where she scored eleven points over seventeen minutes played in a 102–44 Stanford victory. She finished her freshman year with seventeen points over forty-eight minutes played. Wilson made her first career start against the UNLV Lady Rebels during her sophomore year and scored eight points. She scored a career-high twenty-one points against the

Ohio State Buckeyes The Ohio State Buckeyes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The athletic programs are named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and after the state tree ...

in a game Stanford lost 94–82. She finished the year with an average of 3.3 points per game over 10.7 minutes per game and two games started, though she missed the last seven games of the season because of a left foot injury. In her

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

year, Wilson averaged 2.7 points per game over thirty-two games played and three games started as Stanford won the 2019 Pac-12 Conference women's basketball tournament but lost in the Elite Eight round of the

2019 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The 2019 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 64 teams to determine the national champion for the 2018–19 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The 38th annual edition of the tournament began ...

to the

Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division ...

84–68. As a senior, she averaged 2.5 points per game in a bench role as Stanford lost in the final of the 2020 Pac-12 Conference tournament to the

Oregon Ducks The Oregon Ducks are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Oregon, located in Eugene. The Ducks compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Pac-12 Conferenc ...

, and the NCAA tournament was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Because of the health issues her freshman year, Wilson was granted another season of eligibility at Stanford under the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

's hardship wavier rule after an appeal of an initial denial. Anna Wilson Senior Day (cropped)

As a fifth-year senior, Wilson started every game, and was noted for her defensive ability. She finished with career highs in minutes per game, at 23.6,

field goal percentage Field goal percentage in basketball is the ratio of field goals made to field goals attempted. Its abbreviation is FG%. Although three-point field goal percentage is often calculated separately, three-point field goals are included in the gener ...

, at .509, and

rebounds 'Rebound' is a term used in sports to describe the ball (or puck or other object of play) becoming available for possession by either opponent after an attempt to put the ball or puck into the goal has been unsuccessful. Rebounds are generally ...

per game, with 3.7. The Cardinal defeated the

Arizona Wildcats The Arizona Wildcats are the sport, athletic teams that represent the University of Arizona, located in Tucson, Arizona, Tucson. The Wildcats compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I (NCAA Divis ...

54–53 to win the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship Game; Wilson, who started the game, played thirty-one minutes, accumulating five points, three assists and four rebounds. In March, Wilson was named Pac-12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year, along with

Aari McDonald Aarion Shawnae McDonald (; born August 20, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Perth Lynx of the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) in Australia. She was drafted third overall by the Atlanta Dream of the Women's Nat ...

of Arizona. She was eligible to play a sixth season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shortened the 2020–2021 season, and, on May 10, she announced she would return for a sixth season at Stanford. In her sixth season with the Cardinal, Wilson played in thirty-five games, with twenty-five starts and a new career-high 25.7 minutes per game. She played

along with Lacie Hull after the graduation of

Kiana Williams Kiana Williams (born April 9, 1999) is an American basketball player who last played for the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA. She was drafted by the Storm with the 18th pick in the 2021 WNBA draft after playing college basketball at Stanford. Coll ...

. Facing the

Washington Huskies The Washington Huskies are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Washington, located in Seattle. The school competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Pac- ...

, Wilson scored the go-ahead

layup A layup in basketball is a two-point shot attempt made by leaping from below, laying the ball up near the basket, and using one hand to bounce it off the backboard and into the basket. The motion and one-handed reach distinguish it from a Jump sh ...

after stealing an inbound pass in a 63–56 Stanford win on February 26. She made the Pac-12 All-Defensive team for a second time and finished the season with 4.7 points and 2.9 rebounds per game as Stanford lost in the Final Four of the

2022 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The 2022 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams to determine the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2021–22 NCAA Divis ...

to the

UConn Huskies The UConn Huskies (or Connecticut Huskies) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Connecticut, located in Storrs. The school is a member of the NCAA's Division I and the Big East Conference. The university's fo ...

63–58. She finished her college career with 160 games played, fourth-most in NCAA history and most in Stanford history . Wilson declared for the 2022 WNBA draft, in which teams in the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

(WNBA) select players to sign for their rosters, where she went unchosen.

Career statistics

College

''Source'': , - , style="text-align:left;", 2016–17 , style="text-align:left;",

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

, 6 , , 0 , , 8.0 , , .462 , , .500 , , .333 , , 1.0 , , 0.8 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 1.2 , , 2.8 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, 21 , , 2 , , 10.7 , , .296 , , .290 , , .500 , , 1.1 , , 0.4 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 0.6 , , 3.3 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, 32 , , 3 , , 11.6 , , .403 , , .259 , , .643 , , 1.5 , , 0.7 , , 0.7 , , 0.0 , , 0.4 , , 2.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, 33 , , 0 , , 14.0 , , .355 , , .293 , , .680 , , 2.4 , , 1.3 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 0.8 , , 2.5 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 33 , , 33 , , 23.6 , , .509 , , .452 , , .739 , , 3.7 , , 2.1 , , 1.5 , , 0.1 , , 0.7 , , 4.6 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2021–22 , style="text-align:left;",

, 35 , , 25 , , 25.7 , , .404 , , .270 , , .652 , , 2.9 , , 2.4 , , 1.4 , , 0.3 , , 1.0 , , 4.7

Personal life

Wilson is the sister of

quarterback

Russell Wilson Russell Carrington Wilson (born November 29, 1988) is an American football quarterback for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He previously played his first 10 seasons for the Seattle Seahawks. Wilson is widely regarded ...

. In addition to Russell, Anna has another brother, Harrison Wilson IV, who played college football and college baseball for the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

. She was an art practice major at Stanford for her undergraduate degree, and a media studies/communication major for her master's degree.

Notes

References

External links

Interview with Anna Wilson
* USA Basketball article on Wilson {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Anna 1997 births Living people American women's basketball players Basketball players from Richmond, Virginia Guards (basketball) McDonald's High School All-Americans Stanford Cardinal women's basketball players