Lexie Hull reflects on the impact of twin Lacie on her basketball career

“Our entire lives we’ve always done everything together,” said Lexie, who spent her rookie campaign with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever and recently joined the 2023 Athletes Unlimited Basketball roster. “Starting off with basketball in kindergarten, we played together. We played soccer together; played volleyball together. Every single day.”

Since the second grade, the Hull sisters were also each other’s biggest competitors. They became so competitive that their mother Jaime made them split up at school, so they were in different classes all throughout elementary school.

“I think something that a lot of people don’t know is that my dad is also a twin,” Lexie said.

“Him having a twin growing up I think led him to raising us with a twin’s mindset if that makes sense,” Lacie added. “He understood the inherent competition we would feel doing anything against each other.”

It was their competitive spirit that helped them become skilled basketball players.

“It made us that much better,” Lexie said. “If one of us was outside practicing ball handling or shooting on our hoop, we heard the ball outside and the other one came out. We wouldn’t let the other one try to get ahead.”

When college recruitment began, their goal was to play together as they always had, and garnered interest from the same schools.

 

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The pair chose Stanford, where they went on to win an NCAA Championship in 2021. But, when their time at Stanford was almost over, they knew that their future plans were taking them their separate ways.

“In the fall of our senior year, we knew that our paths were going to change and that our relationship with basketball was going to change,” Lexie said. “So it wasn’t a big shocking event, it kind of just happened that way.”

Lexie was drafted sixth overall in the 2022 WNBA Draft by the Fever, while Lacie began her career at eBay in Austin, Texas.

It was an adjustment for the duo, as their bond shifted away from the physical presence they always had to communicating in every other way.

“Now, we talk with each other on every form of communication—FaceTime, phone calls, text, Snapchat, Instagram DMs, Tik Tok DMs, you name it,” Lacie said. “She is top 3 on my Snapchat best friends list constantly, something I would never have guessed when we were in college or growing up together.”

It wasn’t the only transition Lexie faced as she took the court in her first professional season.

“The transition from college to the WNBA was harder [than high school to college] for me because of all of those times where I would’ve leaned on someone or talked to someone who understood,” Lexie said. “l didn’t have that as readily available so it definitely was a harder transition.”

In her rookie campaign, Lexie averaged 12.8 minutes, 3.8 points and 1.5 rebounds per game. As the season progressed, so did she, culminating the season with four of her best games where she averaged 12 points, 3.3 rebounds and 29.75 minutes per game.

Now, Lexie heads to Dallas, Texas for the second AU Basketball season and while her sister may no longer be on the court alongside her, she won’t be far – Austin is just four hours away.

“It’s so exciting that she will just be a drive away,” Lacie said. “I look forward to being able to support [her] in person!”

“I definitely wouldn’t be anywhere near the person or basketball-wise, the player I am without growing up with her,” Lexie said. “We pushed each other into the people that we are.”