After tearing her ACL in the final regular season game of her collegiate career, Elizabeth Kitley wasn’t quite sure what to expect on the night of the WNBA Draft.
Before her injury – which she suffered during the third quarter of a game against Virginia on March 3 – the Summerfield, North Carolina native was projected by many to be a first-round pick. And for a lot of reasons. The 6-foot-6 Kitley had become a three-time Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year while playing for Virginia Tech and holds the conference’s career record for rebounds (1,506) and double-doubles (76).
Kitley had surgery to repair the knee last month and showed up to Monday night’s draft in Brooklyn, New York wearing a bulky black brace on her left leg. During the second round, she had to put her crutches to use to walk up on stage after WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called her name.
The Las Vegas Aces – the WNBA’s reigning champs – selected Kitley in the second round with the 24th overall pick.
“My emotions have been so up and down over the last six weeks. I had different expectations in February than I did at the end of March,” Kitley said Monday night. “To be able to learn from the people at Vegas for the next year – what more could you ask for? … I'm really excited, and that's my No. 1 emotion right now.”
A product of Northwest Guilford High School, Kitley was the only North Carolina native selected in this year’s WNBA Draft and one of just three ACC players selected. The others were Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair and Louisville’s Kiki Jefferson. Former Duke guard Celeste Taylor – who transferred to Ohio State ahead of this past season – was taken 15th by the Indiana Fever.
While Kitley’s father Ralph played at Wake Forest and professionally in Germany, she says she didn’t start taking basketball seriously until high school. There, at Northwest Guilford, she blossomed into a top prospect while winning a pair of state championships.
But North Carolina and Duke didn’t recruit Kitley, and she fell in love with Blacksburg, Virginia, and took her talents out of the Tar Heel State and to Virginia Tech, where she become the catalyst for a transformative era for Hokies’ women’s basketball. Kitley started in all 151 games she played in for the Hokies and averaged 17.9 points, 10 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game while leading the program to new heights.
Before Kitley’s arrival, Virginia Tech had little success or history to brag about in women’s basketball. With her leading the way, the Hokies won an ACC Tournament in Greensboro last season, went to the program’s first-ever Final Four in 2023, won the ACC’s regular-season title this season, and hosted five sellout games in Cassell Coliseum this year. Virginia Tech has already announced plans to retire Kitley’s No. 33 jersey. The three-time AP All-American leaves as the program’s all-time leader in games started, minutes played, rebounds and points scored.
“That means everything. Those five years at Virginia Tech were so, so special. I wouldn't change a thing about it,” Kitley said. “The people I had around there, the teammates, the coaches, they were just incredible. They made me who I was. For me to bring that attention to Virginia Tech was just so fun.”
Kitley will forever be part of this WNBA Draft class — which also includes Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese — that brought tremendous levels of growth in viewership and attention to women’s basketball. More than 18.7 million people tuned in to watch this year’s national title game, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game on-record. The WNBA is hoping that new fans continue to follow these players.
“The class that I'm in right now has done an incredible job to bringing attention to women's sports, women's basketball, and now taking it into this league I think is super exciting,” Kitley said. “I think we're already seeing the impact of that on little girls. I think they're way more aware of it than I was at that age, and that's super exciting.”
Kitley joins an Aces team coached by Becky Hammon and led on the court by South Carolina product A’ja Wilson. It’s unclear, because of her injury, whether Kitley will suit up for the Aces this year. Whether she’s on the court or on the sidelines, she’ll do what she can to help the team win its third straight WNBA championship.
