It’s not particularly common event, at least historically, for players to transfer within conferences so I was intrigued after it was announced last spring that the graduate senior, Tayla Dalton, would be transferring from St. Mary’s to Gonzaga.
In the previous campaign as a Gael, Dalton put a career high of 10.1 points, 46.5% overall shooting, 36% three point shooting, and 2.5 assists while also having participated in 119 games for nearly 3000 minutes in her previous four years. I felt this was going to be a very important for a Bulldog team that looked fairly thin and inexperienced at the guard position and had high hopes for the Australian. As such, I predicted that the fifth year senior would post up 30 minutes, 12 points, 2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2 steals, and 0.2 blocks in her final year of college.
Unfortunately for Tayla and the Zags, things didn’t quite work out that way as she suffered a recurring foot injury during the preseason and only made her first appearance of the year in mid December. Even then, it took Tayla about another 5 weeks to start getting more consistent minutes and drawing the starting spot, but she never really got her offense flowing all season.
Across her 24 games and 15 starts, Dalton averaged 5.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.1 steals, and just 1.6 turnovers, which means she had the highest A/T ratio on the team. Interestingly, after becoming a starter on January 25th, her scoring numbers dropped from 5.3 to 4.8 per game while both her rebounding and assist numbers grew from 3.2 to 4.5 and 1.8 to 2.5, respectively. Fun fact, despite playing the fewest minutes of her career since her freshman season, Dalton posted her second highest ever assist total with 56 and second highest total rebounds with 87.
That goes to show how much of a swiss army knife Tayla was to the ‘24-25 Zags. There were games where based on things like production and foul trouble, you could see Dalton, all 5’9” of her, lining up as a forward for the gang! But you wouldn’t have known the Aussie was playing out of position as her motor drove her to make gutty plays that helped keep the Bulldogs capable of fighting for the W.
I can’t help but look at this past year and wish that Tayla had the opportunity for a redo, this time without the foot injury. Even when visibly hampered physically, you could tell that Dalton’s mindset was that of a true Bulldog: ferocious, smart, and willing to make the play for her team. She also seemed to have such an infectious personality with an ever present big smile that made her a great teammate, even if she was only here for one year.
I mean look at these photos of her with her now-former teammates celebrating Vonny’s announcement as a 3rd round pick for the Indiana Fever of the WNBA:
From everything I could see, Tayla looked to be a great teammate and her presence in the locker room and campus will surely be missed. Let’s hope the Australian can preach the wonders of being a Gonzaga Bulldog to her more of her compatriots! Good luck in your next steps Tayla Dalton.
