Aliyah Boston was the first of five players from South Carolina to get drafted.
Lou Lopez-Senechal made history at the 2023 WNBA Draft.
The UConn wing became the first Mexican-born player to be drafted by the WNBA when the Dallas Wings selected her with the No. 5 overall pick on Monday.
In 2022, UConn's Evina Westbrook became the first Mexican-American player in the WNBA after the Seattle Storm selected her in the second round. She would later be signed by the Minnesota Lynx before the season started after the Storm waived her after training camp.
Lopez-Senechal, a fifth-year senior, was born in Guadalajara, Mexico to parents Carlos Lopez and Sophie Senechal; her father is Mexican and her mother is French. She moved to Grenoble, France when she was 5 years old after her parents had separated.
She played basketball at a high school in France in 2017-18 before joining North Atlantic Basketball Academy in Ireland when she turned 19. Playing basketball in America post-high school initially wasn't on her mind, according to Aishwarya Kumar of ESPN, but eventually, with the help of her step-father, they sent 280 emails to schools in Division I and Division II. The only exceptions were top-25-ranked programs.
Among the schools that responded were Tulsa, Akron, Duquesne, UMass Lowell and Fairfield, the latter of which she accepted. She spent four seasons there -- winning 2022 MAAC Player of the Year and earning four all-conference team nods -- before transferring to UConn for the final year of her eligibility.
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There she averaged 15.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.6 assists on a 48/44/85 shooting split (12/4.7/2.4 attempts) in 37 games, boosting her draft stock on a No. 2-seeded Huskies team that lost to No. 3 Ohio State in the Sweet 16. Lopez-Senechal scored 25 points on 9-for-13 shooting in that game despite dealing with a knee injury.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Fairfield in marketing and will earn another from UConn in general studies.
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Dallas had three straight picks -- Nos. 3 to 5 -- in the first round, selecting, in order, Maddy Siegrist (Villanova), Stephanie Soares (Iowa State) and Lopez-Senechal.
The Wings open the 2023 regular season on Saturday, May 20 against the Atlanta Dream.
