On the eve of the WNBA’s 30th season, Dan Ricci received a message.
“Coach, it’s not out there yet, but I signed with the Liberty,” the text read.
The message put everything into perspective for the Ossining High School girls’ basketball coach.
One of the best players he’s ever coached was getting an opportunity to play on one of the greatest WNBA teams assembled on opening night at Barclays Center in front of a sellout crowd — in her hometown.
The head coach had a short response: “Whoa.”
The message came from Aubrey Griffin, the two-time state champion and 2019 Miss New York Basketball award winner at Ossining — a public high school along the Hudson River less than an hour away from Brooklyn.
But on Friday night, Griffin was a Liberty player inked in history after scoring the first points of her WNBA career.
It’s the first of many more if a WNBA coach has the same vision as Ricci.
“Extremely athletic,” Ricci described Griffin to the Daily News. “I really think that she hasn’t even scratched the surface of her ability yet. It’s all injuries she went through.”
But to see how Griffin, the daughter of former Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin and sister of 2022 NBA first-round pick AJ, got to the pros despite the injuries, you have to understand how her opportunity arose through the Liberty’s own shortcomings.
Twenty-four hours prior to a season-opening matchup against the Connecticut Sun, Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco had just seven healthy players available.
Most notably, Sabrina Ionescu was sidelined with a left foot injury, while star offseason acquisition Satou Sabally was absent dealing with a cyst. Rebecca Allen (left leg) and Marine Fauthoux (knee) were unable to suit up while dealing with their own injuries.
Leonie Fiebich and Raquel Carrera were both healthy, but hooping in Spain on overseas duty.
In came Aubrey — and Julie Vanloo — who signed a hardship contract to help boost the Liberty’s available players from seven to nine.
The quick turnaround was a whirlwind for Griffin, who bolted from Westchester to the busy downtown Brooklyn streets.
Before the team announced her signing on Friday, Griffin participated in an individual workout the night before. She then took in her first WNBA regular-season shootaround before hearing her name called by the PA announcer moments before the matchup with the Sun.
The sequence of events was so crazy, she couldn’t even properly recall her previous 24 hours.
“I was actually in — where was I? I don’t even remember where I was,” the rookie said when asked what she was doing when the team called. “It’s been such a crazy 24 hours. But, when I heard the news, I was just very excited to be given this opportunity and just come here and just play honestly.”
The opportunity came after highs and lows for the 6-1 athlete.
She missed her sophomore high school season — and some of her junior season — with a torn ACL. The injury bug followed her to UConn as a five-star recruit after suffering a left ACL tear (missed rest of 2023-34 season) and back injury that required surgery in 2022.
That’s about three full seasons of basketball and development gone.
But Griffin, who Ricci lauded as a “really tough kid,” never wavered.
“That says a lot about her character,” Ricci told The News. “When she was out in high school, she had a torn ACL [but] she came to every single practice, every single game, she dribbled the ball on the sideline, against the wall, worked out with her own personal trainer, plus our school trainer, to get back. She came back better than ever. She still scored 2,000 points in high school [in two and a half seasons].
Fast forward to 2025, Griffin was selected 37th overall by the Minnesota Lynx, but missed the season after having surgery on her left knee. The Lynx brought her back at the start of 2026 training camp, but she was waived.
Ricci raved about Griffin’s IQ on the floor. The cutthroat nature of WNBA roster transactions forces players to learn different team styles and playbooks on the fly. In response to learning Griffin doing that with the Liberty, Ricci felt she did the same in Minnesota at the start of camp.
“One hundred percent she’s all in, and she doesn’t need the ball to be effective. She’ll make plays defensively. That’s what she was doing with Lynx,” he said of Griffin, who logged six points, two rebounds, one steal and one block in two preseasons games with the Lynx.
“First couple games, I was like, ‘she might make [the team],’ because they’re really raving on social media. They were raving about her defensive ball pressure and all that stuff. And she could get real long arms, and she gets into it. She’s very athletic.”
It didn’t take long for Ricci to notice Griffin’s athleticism. He recalled the hooper dunking with a tennis ball in the ninth grade during practice, a moment she laughed about on Friday.
“Yeah, I did. That’s true,” she said.
Her feat inside Barclays Center, though, was more remarkable. She made her WNBA debut at the 5:10 mark of the fourth quarter of a 106-75 rout. In that moment, Griffin said she felt “excitement,” and she “just wanted to go out there and play, like, contribute in any way I can.”
She had her chance at her first assist after getting defenders to collapse on her while driving to the paint — an emphasis in DeMarco’s system — before finding Vanloo open for a three-pointer.
“I’m a driver, so whenever I can get the opportunity to kick it out for the three, if I see it, I’m gonna kick it out,” she said.
Vanloo missed, but the next opportunity was much sweeter.
A couple minutes later, she had a final shot with time expiring. She drove through contact again — this time calling her own number for a left-handed finish with 36.2 seconds remaining in her debut.
On any other night, the achievement would be worthy of a game ball awarded to the rookie.
Coincidentally, a total of three Liberty rookies came out the game with new accomplishments — Pauline Astier scored her first points and DeMarco got his first-ever win as a WNBA head coach during Griffin’s own debut.
Not to mention, Breanna Stewart became the second-fastest WNBA player to score 6,000 points.
“We’ll have a few game balls,” Griffin’s fellow UConn alum said.
The hope is for Griffin to get more opportunities for game balls. Hardship contracts last a week and expire once a team has 10 available players.
Whether the opportunity comes in New York or another team is yet to be known.
“She just needs to get an opportunity, and I’m glad she’s getting one now. I know it’s not a long-term contract, but hopefully she gets to open some eyes, and if not, stick with the Liberty, which would be great, since she grew up in New York. If not there then hopefully somebody else picks her up.”
