Oct. 8—SIOUX FALLS — The WNBA Finals are in full swing, and South Dakota’s fingerprints are all over the Wilson basketballs being dribbled in Phoenix and in Vegas.
Game 3 is set for Wednesday night, with the Las Vegas Aces out to a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series over the Phoenix Mercury, and, in case you haven’t heard, both teams are coached by South Dakota basketball legends — Becky Hammon (Las Vegas) and Nate Tibbetts (Phoenix).
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The Mount Rushmore State has come a long, long way when it comes to sending its athletes onto the national stage since the turn of the century, where once it was a tremendous rarity, now the NFL, NBA and MLB are littered with players and coaches with connections to South Dakota.
But for a state that has an uncommon and long-lasting love affair with women’s basketball, seeing Tibbetts and Hammon make an impact in one of the most-watched WNBA Finals ever feels especially appropriate.
“I think it’s extremely special,” Tibbetts said in a WNBA promotional video this week. “There’s not a lot of us, right? It’s a small state. It’s a state that supports one another. I know definitely before I came to the W (Hammon) was always someone that I was rooting for. It’s really cool for our state.”
For those that don’t know the backstories:
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Hammon, a 48-year-old Rapid City native, starred at Stevens High School in the mid-90s, but due to her small stature drew little interest from Division I colleges. She finally got a chance at Colorado State and immediately became a star, earning three All-America selections and becoming the Rams’ all-time scoring leader.
Hammon had to prove herself again at the next level, going undrafted by the WNBA but eventually becoming a six-time All-Star.
From there, Hammon embarked on a coaching career that saw her join the staff of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, where she became the first woman to serve as acting coach in a game (when Gregg Popovich got ejected) and also the first woman to be named head coach of an NBA Summer League team.
She’s been the coach of the Aces since 2022 and was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2023.
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Tibbetts, who is also 48, grew up in Jefferson, where his dad, Fred, was the girls basketball coach. Nate moved with Fred to Sioux Falls and the Roosevelt Rough Riders in the 90s, and while Fred built one of the most powerful girls basketball teams in the nation (at one point winning 111 games in a row), Nate became an all-state guard for the boys team, eventually going on to play for USD.
Nate began his coaching career with the Coyotes, then moved on to USF and the NBA D-League’s Sioux Falls Skyforce. He became the Force head coach in 2007 and got called up to the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2011. He would spend eight years on the staff in Portland and two in Orlando before returning to the head coach’s chair in Phoenix last year.
When Tibbetts was hired in Phoenix, there were some voices there who questioned the Mercury’s decision to hire a man to coach their WNBA team (and make him the highest-paid coach in the league’s history).
Tibbetts met those concerns head-on, explaining the integral role girls and women’s basketball played in his family and his own coaching journey, and quickly won over the Mercury players and fans.
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After having gone 9-31 the year before Tibbetts arrived, the Mercury went 19-21 in his first season, making the playoffs.
This year, they went 27-17, knocking off the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx on their way to the finals.
And now South Dakota is having its women’s basketball moment on the professional stage, and it gives Tibbetts and Hammon a way to shine a light on women’s basketball in their home state. While many parts of the country are just starting to come around to watching and supporting women’s hoops, the sport has a long and proud history here. Dating back to the powerful Division II North Central Conference, South Dakotans received an education and introduction to women’s basketball when those teams would play before the men’s teams as part of weekend doubleheaders (a tradition still used by many Division II schools today).
South Dakota State, the University of South Dakota, Augustana and neighboring North Dakota and North Dakota State all had prominent women’s basketball teams in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, building fan bases and inspiring young girls to pursue the sport as an opportunity not just to compete on a big stage but to earn a college scholarship.
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That fervor for women’s basketball only intensified when SDSU and later USD moved up to Division I, and the Jackrabbit women are now a well-known brand in the women’s game. Last year, they made their 13th NCAA tournament appearance, beating Oklahoma State in the first round before falling to eventual national champion UConn. Both SDSU and USD have reached the Sweet 16 within the last decade.
Hammon and Tibbets have been off in the professional world of basketball for a long time. But don’t think they aren’t both aware of what continues to happen with women’s basketball back home.
Tibbetts talks often of the pride his late father would take not only in seeing where his son’s career has taken him, but where women’s basketball is today in this state.
While the Mercury will be looking to strike back in the series Wednesday night, Tibbetts and Hammon will remain fans of each other. They got to know each other better during the pandemic, when both were in the NBA partaking in the league’s quarantined ‘bubble’ season. Today, they both understand the significance of their basketball journeys and what it means for their home state.
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“When he came to the W, you know, I picked up the phone and called him,” Hammon said in the same WNBA video. “And I said, you know, if there’s anything I can help you with any questions that you have, and we had the same agent, so we’ve had a lot of these little connections throughout the way. Nate’s a great guy, great human being, great basketball coach. So I’m really excited for him and just his success that he’s had.”
