LaDazhia Williams was an unlikely hero of the 2023 NCAA national championship game, scoring 20 points for the title-winning LSU Lady Tigers. A year after being drafted No. 17 overall by the Indiana Fever, she’s yet to make her WNBA debut, but continues to play professional ball, this season for Gladiadoras de San Luis Potosí in Mexico’s Liga Mexicana de Baloncesto Profesional Femenil (LMBPF).
Out of all the places that you could play college ball, you picked South Carolina. I’m going through the list of the teams that recruited you out of high school, and there’s LSU, which you ended up playing for, Florida State, South Florida, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Tennessee. So why why the Gamecocks?
I just really liked Dawn Staley. My high school coach, she was a Black woman and, I just wanted that role model and that type of figure just to look up to as a coach [in college]. And A’ja Wilson was my teammate my freshman year, so I just wanted to learn and watch her and stuff. So it just felt like a great fit.
And what makes Coach Staley so special?
She’s just a parent away from home, really. She was constantly staying on me, always pushing me to do better. While I was there, she showed up for us every day, that type of stuff. She was just very strong, a strong woman.
And how different are Coach Staley and Coach Mulkey, that you ended up playing for in your last college year?
They’re different, but kinda like the same, just like how hard they want to win. And Coach Staley was on me every day in practice. Coach Mulkey was the same. What was different, was the time that I got to play for Coach Mulkey, I was a six-year senior. I had more experience, and she looked at me as more of a leader than as a freshman coming in, like Coach Staley got to experience me as.
Was there one moment or one game that made you realize that your LSU team could actually win the championship?
When I got to LSU, I was one of nine new players. So we kinda rebuilt that year. But over the summer, we really focused on team bonding and playing pickup games, and just making sure we buit the chemistry within the team. It’s because we knew we had so many new people, a lot of freshmen, transfers and stuff. I just felt as we kept going along during the summer, day by day, our chemistry, I would say, was just getting stronger and stronger.
Was that inspired by Coach Mulkey or did you guys do it on your own?
We did that all on our own. We had to schedule our own pickup sessions, schedule our own outside team bonding. Sometimes we’ll have things that we do, which the team will pay for, but we did stuff on our own, too. So she didn’t always control it.
After college you’re picked No. 17 overall in the 2023 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever, but they cut you after one preseason game. Four minutes is a very small, unfair sample size to evaluate somebody.
When I got drafted, there were already four or five bigs [on the team]. So it was just: Go out there and do my hardest and if I get cut, I can’t get down on myself because the WNBA doesn’t have enough teams for everybody. That was kinda how I took it. If you get cut, you can’t really be too hard on yourself, knowing that it’s a limited number of spots. And you can try to get on another team or go overseas really. But it was a fun experience, though.
So you played in Israel and France last year, and Mexico this year.
In Israel, I only got to play one game and then, you know, all that stuff started, so I ended up leaving. But it was very beautiful out there. Hot. I’m from Florida, so I like the hot more than the cold. I wasn’t too far from the beach, and I was starting to enjoy my team, Petah Tikva. And we got one game in. And then shortly after, I went to France. I just wish my team in France would be more organized and had better resources, and I wish they actually listened to the players, our concerns and stuff, because it was just such a rough season.
And now Mexico. How’s it been so far?
San Luis Potosí is a new team, so they kinda got a late start to this season. But we just won last night, so that was good. We needed that. We’re trying to just jell together right now and really figure out how to put the team together. But I like it here so far, we have five American players… I’ve never been to Mexico.
You also have some big plans for September. They’re outside of basketball, but maybe you can tell us more about them?
New York Fashion Week Festival hosted by The Model Experience will take place on Sept. 13, 2024 and will be my first fashion show. I hope to gain confidence in my modeling and styling, and hopefully leave the show with interests from modeling agents.