UNCASVILLE – Alexis Morris will first have to secure a place on the Connecticut Sun roster, but if all goes right, she will cross paths with Brittney Griner in Phoenix on July 18 and throw her arms around her.
“I’m a people person and people stick with me,” Morris said. “And B.G. was part of my journey coming up, wanting to be a college player. Baylor recruited me when I was in the seventh, eighth grade and I would go to camp. I was just a little kid looking up to B.G., I wanted to be like her, I watched them win a championship, it was part of my childhood.”
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Morris remembered tossing a football with Griner at Baylor events for young campers like her. As Morris was completing her long, full-circle college career, reuniting at LSU with coach Kim Mulkey, who had dismissed her from the team at Baylor in 2019, to win a national championship, Griner, in prison in Russia for 10 months, classified as “wrongfully detained” by the U.S. Government before she was freed by an exchange in December, was never far from her thoughts.
“It hurt me a lot,” Morris said. “And I was in an environment where I couldn’t speak out the way I wanted to, I didn’t want to … make it worse for her. It hurt me to death. Nobody knew what the outcome would be. I’m just so happy she’s home, back with her wife, back with her family, doing what she loves to do. B.G., I love you since I was a kid. I don’t know if anybody can go through that situation like B.G. did and get out of it. I know she’s traumatized. I just want everybody in the (WNBA) to have her back. I don’t care about what she did, nobody deserves that treatment.
“I’m just going to give her a big hug and probably tear up because I know how it is to be villainized.”
Morris, 23, from Beaumont, Texas, was picked by the Sun in the second round of the WNBA Draft, No. 22 overall. She reported for her first training camp with a championship ring from LSU, and an edge one can’t avoid feeling when around her, a combativeness and a willingness to speak her mind. “Spunk,” Mulkey’s word for Morris, only begins to describe her.
“First and foremost, I’ve been really impressed with her communication,” Sun coach Stephanie White said. “She’s a player who has come in and introduces herself to everyone she meets. She’s the first one to speak, the first one to say if she doesn’t get it. Her communication has been terrific. There’s a lot being thrown at her. The expectation for me is for her to just continue to learn.”
Alexis Morris on her 1st day of training camp with the @ConnecticutSun. #WNBA pic.twitter.com/h120EhlDLl
— Women’s Hoopz (@WBBWorldWide) April 29, 2023
Said veteran DeWanna Bonner, “Oh, she’s funny. Usually on the first day of training camp, a rookie is kind of quiet, shy, but not ‘Lex. She comes in laughing and joking, but she’s trying to lock in and learn. Coming from college to pros, she’s got a lot to learn. But she’s been fun, fun to be on the court with.”
It hasn’t always been ideal for Morris. After playing a meaningful role as a freshman at Baylor, Morris was dismissed from the team after being arrested on misdemeanor assault charges following an incident at Texas State University. Morris missed out on Baylor’s championship, and played at Rutgers, withdrawing for medical reasons, and then Texas A&M.
She longed for another chance to play for Mulkey, and when Mulkey moved from Baylor to rebuild the program at LSU, Morris got that second chance and made the most of it.
“That smile, that spunk, never, ever has that child ever disrespected me in any way, ever,” Mulkey told reporters in Dallas, after Morris got 21 points and nine assists in LSU’s victory over Iowa for the national championship. “And when I had to dismiss her, it was for the sake of the locker room and the sake of making a tough decision to not lose your team. I had sleepless nights over it because I loved Alexis.
“… When I got the LSU job, she basically said, ‘Coach, I need you in my life. I’m coming back to play for you.’ You’re thinking, this is a kid who owned her mistake. This is a kid who never blamed a coach. She did it to herself. And you wonder why some coaches will take a kid like that back? That is a valuable lesson for all of us as parents. Look where she is sitting today. What a remarkable story.”
For Morris, the story continues in the WNBA, where the Sun, having dismantled the team that reached two Finals, are now considered underdogs in a league expected to be dominated by “super teams” in New York and Las Vegas.
After winning her championship with Mulkey at LSU, Morris up for it, and knows what it takes.
“It meant everything to me,” Morris said. “It makes my story a million-dollar story. It’s rare. We shocked the world. Everybody counted us out, ‘we had a weak preseason schedule,’ right? We were in nobody’s bracket. Nobody thought LSU would be in the Final Four. People like to say we got lucky. The pieces just fell where they fell. We had tough games. I’m going to tell you right now, there was a method to the madness. Coach Mulkey knew we had nine new pieces, why was she going to schedule the UConns and the Tennessees, she didn’t know what she was going to be working with. Why embarrass the program and disappoint the fans? It worked out in her favor.”
At her four schools, Morris played for three Hall-of-Fame coaches, Mulkey, C. Vivian Stringer and Gary Blair. She played in 125 college games, averaging 11.4 points and 3.0 assists. At LSU, she averaged 15.4 and 4.1 across 36 games, and graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, with minors in Leadership, Sociology and Sports Management.
“Coach Stringer taught me the details,” Morris said. “She was very methodical and meticulous with her system, from the cuts to getting open, layups. I learned how to play defense, one on one, man to man defense when I was at Texas A&M. And at Baylor and LSU, I learned how to run a team, run the offense, be a P.G. … Coach Mulkey was a P.G. herself, so we had that P.G. connection, she could teach me the game, the pace it’s supposed to be played at.”
During her first week in Connecticut, Morris raised a few eyebrows with her social media posts, including a Tik Tok talk in which she exhorted college coaches to follow the WNBA more closely and implement its style of play to better prepare players for the pros.
Alexis Morris was mic’d up for day one with the Connecticut Sun
(via @ConnecticutSun)pic.twitter.com/juTTS5agpG
— espnW (@espnW) May 1, 2023
“The style of play in the pros is nothing like what I’m used to,” Morris explained. “It’s Okay. It just means I have to adjust, I’m learning something new. I’ve been to three different schools, I’ve played for three Hall of Fame coaches. I’ve been in this position before. I struggled to pick up the system, then I got it. In the pros, there’s very little room for error. In college, you can make mistakes and probably get those possessions back. In basketball, every possession matters, but especially at this level. This is the best of the best. Nobody’s competing for conference championships, we’re competing for WNBA championship, you know what I’m saying? That’s the best of the best, it doesn’t get any better.”
If Morris can lock down a spot with the Sun, this much you can bet on: it will not be boring.
“Our vets got chips on their shoulders,” she said, “and I’ve been a player to carry a chip in her shoulder. I think we’re going to have a great season. The leadership here is amazing, and the coaching staff, they want to win, and that’s infectious. That’s contagious energy. The losers, the people who don’t want to win, they’ll just weed themselves out.”
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