Texas women’s basketball alumna Sug Sutton became the first player in Phoenix Mercury history to earn a triple-double in the team’s final regular season game against the Las Vegas Aces. Sutton posted 18 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
“The journey to get here wasn’t easy at all,” Sutton said in a press conference. “To look back and see how far I’ve come, it’s crazy and I’m speechless just to see how much I accomplished and was able to get back to where I said I was going to be.”
Sutton was the last pick in the 2020 WNBA draft, signing for the Washington Mystics.
“Sug has the right demeanor to play in our league,” Mystics general manager Mike Thibault said in 2020. “She’s got some things to learn, but she knows how to push the tempo. We felt that we wanted to see a good point guard come into our camp and compete with our veterans for a spot.”
Despite being a 2020 draftee, this is Sutton’s second professional season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league did not have a training camp or preseason that year, making it harder for incoming rookies to showcase their talent. Sutton was cut from the Mystics roster but was brought back in the middle of the season. However, she was then cut once more. After her rookie season, she spent the year playing overseas in Poland and Australia.
This year, when the Phoenix Mercury were short on guards at the beginning of the season, Sutton was given a second chance in the league.
Sutton signed a non-guaranteed camp contract for the Mercury in April and proved herself by making it into the team’s final roster for the season. She had an immediate impact on the team by scoring in the doubles in nine out of her first 11 games.
“I just trusted the work that I put in and the offseason and everything I’ve been through just to get to this point,” Sutton said to Clutchpoints. “It was just me trusting that and buying into everything that I did in training camp and just staying confident. I think that took me a long way. And my teammates made it good for me, they had confidence in me from the jump. So it just made it easier for me to adjust.”
Sutton, who helped lead Texas to a March Madness campaign her senior year, averaged 8.2 points, 4.8 assists and 2.6 rebounds per game this season in the WNBA.
However, Sutton’s performance was not enough to take the Mercury to the playoffs. The team ended last in the regular season standings.
“We didn’t have a really good season, but there are still positives that came out of it,” Sutton said, according to Arizona Sports. “We still had really great fans. We still had that bond within the team. I think we grew a really great relationship with each other regardless of the year, regardless of our record. I am just taking in everything with this last home game.”
