Laila Phelia started her Syracuse basketball career off on a high note, and she's positioned to be one of the country's top guards in the 2025-26 season.
The 6-foot Phelia, a graduate student from Cincinnati, helped lead the Orange to a 98-62 home exhibition win over Division II Daemen on Tuesday night. In 17 minutes, Phelia scored 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field, 3-of-6 from long distance and 2-of-2 from the free-throw line. She added one rebound, two assists and two steals.
Earlier on Tuesday, Phelia was one of 20 players named to the preseason watch list for the 2026 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, which is given out annually to the best shooting guard in women's college basketball. Congrats, Laila!
Welcome to the JMA Dome @Lailaphelia 🤩
— Syracuse Women's Basketball (@CuseWBB) October 28, 2025
📺ACCNX: https://t.co/0JKQM9Nrp0 pic.twitter.com/tLSNKeUmDF
The Orange officially begins its 2025-26 campaign when the team hosts non-conference foe Stony Brook at the JMA Wireless Dome on Tuesday, Nov. 4, beginning at 7 pm and with live-streaming coverage on the ACC Network Extra.
Graduate student guard Laila Phelia is one of three team captains for Syracuse basketball.
Phelia transferred to the Orange this past spring from Texas. She only played in eight games for the Longhorns in 2024-25 due to an eye injury. Before that, Phelia was a standout at Michigan for three seasons.
While with the Wolverines, she immediately contributed as a freshman, averaging 8.8 points and 2.8 rebounds per game as Michigan advanced to its first-ever Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. As a sophomore and a junior, Phelia averaged better than 16 points per contest in each campaign, and she's a career 81.2 percent shooter from the charity stripe.
In 2022-23, Phelia was named to the All-Big Ten second team, landing on that conference's first team a season later, in 2023-24. As a prep recruit, she starred at Mount Notre Dame High School in Cincinnati. According to SU Athletics, Phelia wrapped up her high school career with Mount Notre Dame on a ridiculous 72-game winning streak, and the team claimed two state titles during her tenure.
Within the 2021 recruiting class, ESPN ranked Phelia as four stars, No. 28 nationally and No. 11 at guard. The Atlantic Coast Conference's preseason poll has Syracuse basketball at No. 13 in the 18-member league, however, head coach Felisha Legette-Jack's program has a talented 2025-26 roster.
Undeniably, Phelia will prove a key contributor in the upcoming campaign on the Hill. After having a rough 2024-25 season due to the eye injury, Phelia said via Syracuse.com of her return to the court on Tuesday, "It felt amazing. Taking a year off was hard, but being back out there was great."