Kelsey Plum, the Washington Huskies’ most decorated women’s basketball player who broke the NCAA Division I all-time scoring record, will have her No. 10 jersey retired by UW, the school announced Friday morning. The retirement ceremony will be held Jan. 18, 2025, at Alaska Airlines Arena when Washington hosts Purdue. “I’m forever proud to be a Husky and UW is a special place that fundamentally shaped me both as a basketball player and as a person,” Plum said in a statement. “It means the world to me to receive this honor and to celebrate it with my family, friends and alumni. “It will be a great feeling to look up at the rafters and see my jersey alongside those that I’ve admired for so long.” Plum is the first UW women’s basketball player to have a jersey retired to the rafters and the sixth in Husky history, joining men’s basketball players Bob Houbregs, Brandon Roy, Isaiah Thomas and volleyball players Courtney Thompson and Krista Vansant.
During her brilliant four-year college career, Plum, a 5-foot-9 point guard from Poway, Calif., became an immediate star at Washington while winning the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year award and averaging 20.9 points per game. Plum’s scoring prowess carried Washington to three straight NCAA tournaments, including the 2016 Final Four during her junior season when the Huskies compiled a 26-11 record. As a senior, she averaged 31.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.8 assists while leading the Huskies back to the Sweet 16 where they finished 29-6 – the most wins in school history. During her record-breaking final season at UW in 2016-17, Plum set the NCAA Division I season record (1,109 points) and the career free-throw (992) mark. In a spellbinding performance in front of a sellout Alaska Airlines Arena crowd on Feb. 25, 2017, Plum became UW’s all-time three-point leader, the Pac-12’s all-time season scoring leader and set the Pac-12 single-game scoring record (57) when she broke the 33-year-old NCAA Division I all-time scoring record during an 84-77 win against Utah. She finished with 3,527 career points in 139 games while guiding Washington to a 98-41 record during her tenure.
In 2017, Plum collected several postseason honors, including the Naismith College Player of the Year, John R. Wooden award and The Associated Press Player of the Year award. The San Antonio Stars selected Plum No. 1 overall in the 2017 WNBA draft before moving to Las Vegas where she won two league titles and became a three-time WNBA All-Star with the Aces. In August, Plum won a gold medal with the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team at the Paris Summer Games. “Kelsey is one of the great basketball players of all time, and she’s a UW legend,” Huskies athletic director Pat Chun said. “An Olympic gold medalist and WNBA champion, Kelsey has inspired fans worldwide and countless young basketball players and student-athletes. “We’re so fortunate to have Kelsey in the Husky family and honored to celebrate her as one of the greatest to wear the Purple and Gold. We look forward to January and raising that banner with her name on it to the rafters where it belongs.”
