The Blue Devils experienced a return to normalcy in many ways this season, winning 28 games and earning a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, and that measured level of success has extended into the spring.
The Atlanta Dream selected senior forward Oderah Chidom with the 31st overall pick in Thursday's WNBA Draft, making her the first Duke player to be drafted since four-time All-American Elizabeth Williams in 2015. The Blue Devils now have 21 draft picks in program history and 11 during head coach Joanne P. McCallie's 10-year tenure.
Chidom averaged more than eight points per game in each of her last three years at Duke, with a career-high of 9.6 points per contest as a junior in 2015-16. The 6-foot-4 forward also averaged at least five rebounds in her last three seasons and ranks sixth in program history with 153 career blocks.
Chidom will join a middling Dream squad that finished 17-17 in 2016 but has won three Eastern Conference titles this decade.
“I loved my time here at Duke,” Chidom said in a press release. “Now I’m excited to see where the next chapter in my life will take me.”
In Duke's upset victory against eventual national champion and then-No. 3 South Carolina Dec. 3, Chidom scored 15 points on 7-of-14 shooting and helped contain the nation's best frontcourt featuring Alaina Coates and A'ja Wilson. Coates was the No. 2 overall pick in Thursday's draft, just behind Washington guard and National Player of the Year Kelsey Plum.
Baylor point guard Alexis Jones—who started her career with the Blue Devils before transferring after her sophomore year in 2014—was taken by the Minnesota Lynx in the first round with the No. 12 pick. Jones was the 2013 ACC tournament MVP and a second-team All-ACC performer in 2013-14 before tearing her ACL toward the end of that season.
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