Syracuse women’s basketball lands Texas transfer Laila Phelia

Orange add experience to the 25-26 roster

It’s never a good sign when the press release announcing transfers has to tell the fanbase explicitly to be excited about the players.

A few weeks ago, that’s where Syracuse Orange women’s basketball was, having signed a few players that — while highly recruited — had not produced at a high level in college basketball.

That tune completely changed on Thursday, when the Orange landed a commitment from Texas transfer guard Laila Phelia, according to a report by On3’s Talia Goodman. Though she played just eight games for the Longhorns in 2024-25, scoring 6.1 points per contest, Phelia had two excellent seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24 for Michigan.

The Cincinnati native was a four-star recruit in the class of 2021, ranked No. 28 in the class by Hoopgurlz, ironically, two spots below Syracuse transfer signee Dominique Darius. But Phelia made an impact in year one in Ann Arbor, scoring 8.8 points per game. She played one of her best games of the season in a Sweet 16 win over South Dakota, scoring 14 points in a game that didn’t feature much scoring.

Phelia then had her breakout season as a sophomore, finishing as the second leading scorer with 16.7 points per game for a Wolverines team that made it back to the NCAA Tournament as a six seed. She also shot 42% from three that season, and while she missed the entire month of February, she came back in time for the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments, where she scored in double figures in three of the four games.

In her junior year, she led Michigan at 16.8 points per game. Although she saw her three-point percentage drop down to 32%, her true shooting percentage only dropped from 54.3 to 52.2, and her offensive rating (per Bart Torvik) actually went up, as she scored more efficiently inside the arc, and increased her assist rate from 8.8% to 12.0%.

After transferring to Texas, she took a back seat offensively to superstar Madison Booker and playmaker extraordinaire Rori Harmon for the first eight games of the season. She then missed the rest of the season, needing eye surgery, and got a medical redshirt. The Longhorns ended up making it to the Final Four.

Phelia is the first transfer acquisition for the Orange to have averaged double digit scoring at a high-major of the Felisha Legette-Jack era, and most likely the most important pickup out of the portal for FLJ when you don’t include the players that followed her from Buffalo.

For a roster that badly needed an infusion of talent, it’s more than worth it to take the risk on a player like Phelia coming off of the eye surgery. This is a late-cycle surprise that could change the trajectory of the season.