WBB Gonzaga Transfers: Tayla Dalton

an inter-conference transfer for Gonzaga you say?

With the large number of departures this Gonzaga team saw at the end of the year and limited amount of big-time, start on day one, recruits, I was certainly expecting Coach Lisa Fortier and Co to be very active in the transfer market, particular with a backcourt that is only returning 2 players in Claire O’Conner and, potentially, Bree Salenbien.

Low and behold, Fortier ended up snagging four transfers:

• G — Tayla Dalton — St. Mary’s
• G — Ines Bettencourt — UConn
• G — Vera Gunaydin — South Georgia Tech (JuCo)
• F — McKynnlie Delan — Minnesota

Today, we’re going to be covering the inter-conference transferee, Tayla Dalton.

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Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, Tayla Dalton arrives to Gonzaga via Moraga, California after attending St. Mary’s for the past four years.

The 5’9” guard featured heavily for her nation’s youth teams growing up with appearances at the 2017 u16 Asian Championships, 2018 u17 World Cup, 2018 u19 Asia Cup in India, and the 2019 u18 3×3 World Cup (where she actually got bronze in the skills competition). With her international pedigree, Dalton stepped into the team immediately with her first year as the 6th person off the bench and subsequent starter thereafter as she only failed to begin the game on the floor in 14 of 92 games.

In those three years starting, Tayla has played nearly 3000 minutes, averaged 9.1 points, shot 48.5% from two and 29.8% from deep, 2.0 assists, 2.5 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 2.1 turnovers. If we’re just looking at those career numbers, I’d say those are solid and represent a solid pickup for this squad for multiple reasons. Gonzaga gets a super senior at a position of need, someone with tons of experience, an ability to score consistently, and a player that sounds committed to helping this program achieve success, if this interview clip tells us anything (full interview here; you’ll have to scroll, but it’s episode 785)

Furthermore, I think we’re getting a player on the rise. In her final year at St. Mary’s, Dalton had her best season as posted a career high in minutes with 33.6, points with 10.1, shooting percentage with 49.7% from two and 36.0% from three, distribution with 2.5 assists, and defense with 1.7 steals and 0.3 blocks while only committing 1.7 fouls per game. I only expect those numbers to climb given that her previous team, the Gaels, averaged the slowest pace in the WCC at 65.7, ten points lower than Gonzaga, 7th lowest number of points with 61.0, nearly twenty lower than GU, and the 7th lowest number of assists with 13.6.

I’m going to save some of the individual game performances and discussion about her role on this upcoming year’s team for another time, but the short of it is that I think Tayla Dalton will be interesting to watch in a Gonzaga uniform. In the meantime, enjoy some clips below: