The Chicago Sky can’t believe their luck.
For the first hour of Monday’s WNBA draft, general manager Jeff Pagliocca and Tyler Marsh watched two of their top targets tumble further down the available board than they ever expected.
When the Sky finally stepped onto the clock with the No. 10 and No. 11 picks, the duo felt confident in their back-to-back selections: Ajša Sivka, a 6-foot-4 forward from Slovenia, and Hailey Van Lith, a 5-9 point guard from TCU.
After the draft, Pagliocca didn’t hide his excitement that both players were still available.
“We were surprised that Sivka was there and we were surprised Hailey was there,” Pagliocca said. “We’re sitting in a really good place right now.”
The No. 10 pick earned a somewhat muted reaction from fans assembled for a watch party at the Revolution Brewing taproom in Avondale. It wasn’t a surprise — the 19-year-old opted not to compete in the NCAA before declaring for the WNBA draft.
But Sivka offers a rare skill set at her height as a confident perimeter shooter who also can create her own shots off the dribble. In 2023, she led the Slovenian U18 team to a FIBA Women’s European Championship title, averaging 15.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 steals as the tournament’s MVP.
“She’s been able to have a lot of success at playing against grown women,” Pagliocca said. “It gives us a little bit of a blueprint when you can handle yourself there. Imagine that girl two, three, four years from now, how special she might be. At that size — even looking throughout our league — as far as her mobility and her ability to shoot the ball and shoot as quickly as she does, there’s just not a lot of them. So it was just too hard to pass up.”
Fans at the watch party were much more vocal minutes later when the Sky used the No. 11 pick to select Van Lith, a star guard at Louisville, LSU and TCU.
Van Lith rose on draft boards after a redemptive fifth college season at TCU, leading the Horned Frogs to the Elite Eight while averaging 17.9 points, 5.4 assists and 4.6 rebounds. After making a strong impression in three seasons at Louisville, Van Lith struggled to adjust to a new role and system in 2023-24 at LSU, shooting 37.8% from the field and seeing her scoring average drop from 19.7 in her third year at Louisville to 11.6 points per game.
Van Lith will reunite with former teammate Angel Reese in Chicago, a prospect that excited both players.
“We ain’t do it right the first time,” Reese wrote on social media. “Let’s run it backkkkk.”
This might have been the best fit in the entire draft for Van Lith. In Chicago, she will have the opportunity to develop behind veteran guards Courtney Vandersloot and Ariel Atkins as an anchor guard in the secondary unit. And the front office believes Van Lith is a natural fit for the tough ethos the Sky are hoping to establish in Chicago.
“She has a winning mindset,” Marsh said. “She’s got a toughness about her. There’s no complacency there in terms of what her improvement and potential can be. That’s part of the culture that we want to build here in Chicago. There’s a lot to like about where she is now as a player and a whole lot to love about where she can be moving forward.”
The Sky added another forward-guard pairing in the second round, choosing Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld at No. 16 and Texas A&M guard Aicha Coulibaly at No. 22.
The 6-3 Westbeld is another stretch forward option like Sivka. She shot 34.9% from 3-point range over her four-year career at Notre Dame. Although her senior season was diminished by a knee injury, Westbeld is a dependable option at the four who could add depth to the Sky frontcourt.
Coulibaly spent her first three seasons at Auburn before transferring to Texas A&M for her last two. While she isn’t a perimeter threat like the Sky’s other selections, her rebounding prowess — she averaged 5.7 for her career as a 6-foot guard — jumps out as a late second-round selection.
The Sky have only two available roster spots entering the preseason, so the four new players could be battling throughout training camp for a WNBA contract — although Coulibaly’s availability is uncertain after she suffered a season-ending knee injury on Jan. 26 against LSU.
The Dallas Wings drafted Connecticut star Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick, the Seattle Storm selected 6-6 French teenager Dominique Malonga at No. 2 and the Washington Mystics picked Notre Dame guard Sonia Citron with the third selection, which they acquired from the Sky in February.
LSU forward Aneesah Morrow, the Chicago native and Simeon alumna who played her first two seasons at DePaul, went at No. 7 to the Connecticut Sun.
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