The Dallas Wings begin its second half of the season in Las Vegas against the Aces Tuesday, July 30 at 7 p.m. CT at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. The contest will be streamed on Twitter.
The Wings are 1-1 all-time after returning from All-Star Break and average more than 87 points in the first game back. Rookie Arike Ogunbowale has been the team’s leading scorer through the first 19 games of the season, averaging 14.2 points a game. Ogunbowale is the league’s leading rookie scorer and leads all rookies in total field goals made (92) and free throws made (45). If the season ended today, Ogunbowale would be one of only two rookie guards that have averaged more than 14 points since 2014.
Kayla Thornton comes in as Dallas’ second leading scoring at a clip of 11.2 points per game. Thornton leads the team in total minutes played (593), total rebounds (111) and free throw percentage (93.2). Her average from the charity stripe is the third best in the league of any player that has more than 40 attempts so far this season. In Thornton’s last three contests she’d held her defensive assignment to an average of 27.7 percent shooting from the field.
Ogunbowale poured in a season-high 25 points against the Aces in the last meeting, the most scored by a Wings player this season and the second most points scored by a rookie in 2019. Kayla Thornton pulled down 10 rebounds, all defensive, for her second double-digit rebound game of the season and registering more than 10 rebounds in back-to-back games for the first time in her career.