In less than six months, DiDi Richards went from suffering a scary injury that left her temporarily paralyzed to getting drafted into the WNBA by the New York Liberty.

At a Baylor preseason practice last Oct. 24, Richards jumped to intercept a pass, collided with a teammate and hit the floor hard. Baylor coach Kim Mulkey later told ESPN the impact sounded “like a football collision without the pads.” Richards suffered a spinal cord injury “without radiographic abnormality,” a non-structural injury that causes temporary impairment.

“Boom, before I knew it, I was laying on my back, and I couldn’t feel my legs in a blink of an eye,” Richards told People magazine.

“When I hit the ground, I immediately went unconscious, and then I was unconscious for about a minute and a half, I guess, before I regained consciousness and I realized that I couldn’t feel anything from my waist down.”

Richards, 22, had been the 2020 national defensive player of the year. Now, she found her career suddenly in jeopardy. “I was scared,” she said of her reaction when a doctor told her she should think about life after basketball.

But Richards powered through her rehab and returned to the court just 38 days after the incident. Richards went on to average 6.3 points, 6.3 assists and 1.2 steals per game during the 2020-21 season, leading the Lady Bears to the Elite Eight, where they came within a controversial final play of knocking off UConn.

On Thursday night, she was selected in the second round, No. 17 overall, by the Liberty.

“When you talk about the perseverance that DiDi Richards had to go through this year, and the trials and tribulations, for that to culminate tonight, being drafted into the WNBA, it’s a special night for us,” Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said. “We couldn’t be happier.”