| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 9, 1967 (1967-02-09) (age 58) Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Listed height | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) |
| Career highlights | |
| |
Stats atBasketball Reference  | |
Medals | |
Venus Lacy (some sources give her name asVenus Lacey, born February 9, 1967) is an American former professionalbasketball who played as a 6-foot-4-inch (1.93 m)center. Born inChattanooga, Tennessee, she won championships at every level, but her American professional career was diminished by injuries she sustained in a 1997 car accident.[1]
A local sports heroine (a city parkway is named after her), Lacy led Chattanooga'sBrainerd High School to the state championship in 1984.
Venus Lacy attendedLouisiana Tech University, which she led to theNCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship in1988. The next year, the Lady Techsters made the1989 Final Four, but lost there toAuburn. In her Senior year, 1990, Louisiana Tech went undefeated through the regular season, and was ranked #1 in the national polls. That year Lacy was a consensus all-American, and was named theWBCA Player of the Year. The 1990 team again made theFinal Four, where they were once again upset by their nemesis Auburn. Lacy finished her NCAA career with 266 points scored in the tournament, putting her among the all-time top 10 women at the time. Lacy was inducted into theLouisiana Tech University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011.
Source[2]
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game | RPG | Rebounds per game |
| APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game | BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game |
| TO | Turnovers per game | FG% | Field-goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field-goal percentage | FT% | Free-throw percentage |
| Bold | Career best | ° | League leader |
| Year | Team | GP | Points | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Louisiana Tech | 33 | 480 | 54.1% | 0% | 55.8% | 9.2 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 14.5 |
| 1989 | Louisiana Tech | 34 | 724 | 55.2% | 75.0% | 66.8% | 11.9 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 21.3° |
| 1990 | Louisiana Tech | 33 | 800 | 60.3% | 33.3% | 73.3% | 12.7 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 2.2 | 24.2 |
| Career | 100 | 2004 | 56.8% | 50.0% | 66.6% | 11.3 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 20.0 |
Lacy played with the USA team at the1991 Pan American Games, held inHavana, Cuba. The team finished with a record of 4–2, but managed to win the bronze medal. The USA team lost a three point game to Brazil, then responded with wins over Argentina and Cuba, earning a spot in the medal round. The next game was a rematch against Cuba, and this time the team from Cuba won a five point game. The USA beat Canada easily to win the bronze. Lacy averaged 9.4 points per game.[3]
Lacy was also a member of the gold-medal-winning1996 Olympic team. Lacy was the last player added to the USA's 12-woman roster, joining the team midway through its year-long exhibition tour to add size in the paint. The team went an undefeated 52-0 in this unprecedented Olympic preparation year, against a variety of college, all-star and international teams.
Because the U.S. lacked a women's pro league, Lacy's professional career began overseas, where she played for teams in Greece, Italy and Japan. She led Greece to a European championship in the 1995-1996 season.
Lacy was the first player selected by theSeattle Reign in theABL Draft on June 19, 1996. From this promising start, her luck seemed to turn sour. Lacy was seriously injured in a car accident on February 4, 1997, and completed her season in Seattle on the injured list. After that year, she was selected by the ABL's expansionLong Beach Stingrays. Expansion teams typically fare poorly in their first several years, but this was an exception: Long Beach made the ABL Finals in their first and only season, where they lost the championship to theColumbus Quest, two games to three. (After winning the first two games, played in Long Beach due to scheduling conflicts in Columbus, the Stingrays were unable to win in Columbus.) Notwithstanding their on-court success, the Long Beach franchise folded after one year, and next year Lacy was once again drafted by another ABL expansion team, the even shorter-livedNashville Noise. Just 15 games into the 1998-1999 season, on December 22, 1998, the ABL itself folded.
No doubt due to her injuries, Lacy went undrafted by anyWNBA team in the special post-ABL consolidation draft. However, midway through the 1999 season, Lacy was picked up by theNew York Liberty to fill in for their injured All-star center,Rebecca Lobo. Lacy played in 17 games that year for the Liberty, and in 2 more in 2000, but without much success. She has not played in the WNBA since.
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game | RPG | Rebounds per game |
| APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game | BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game |
| TO | Turnovers per game | FG% | Field-goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field-goal percentage | FT% | Free-throw percentage |
| Bold | Career best | ° | League leader |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | TO | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | New York | 17 | 0 | 6.5 | 41.7 | 0.0 | 80.0 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 1.9 |
| 2000 | New York | 2 | 2 | 9.0 | 40.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 | 2.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| Career | 2 years, 1 team | 19 | 2 | 6.8 | 41.4 | 0.0 | 73.7 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 2.0 |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | TO | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | New York | 1 | 0 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 |
| Career | 1 years, 1 team | 1 | 0 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 |
