In basketball and business school, Blake Dietrick-Seifert has always created her own path to success

In summer 2024, she studied for the GRE test and wrote essays to apply to business school. She submitted her applications that October and found out where she’d been accepted in early 2025. Her last international 3×3 tournament — a second-place finish in a Women’s Series event — ended on Aug. 2, 2025, and her first day of classes at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business was Aug. 11.

Dietrick-Seifert (formerly known as Dietrick) is pursuing her Master of Business Administration, with the goal of working in sports business one day.

“The end goal is to get back into sports, whether that’s the league office or the front office or helping a new league grow,” Dietrick-Seifert told The IX Basketball. “I just want to continue to grow the game while also improving the lives of female athletes in this country and providing more opportunity.”

“Success is just not something you turn on and off,” North Carolina head coach Courtney Banghart, who coached Dietrick-Seifert to Ivy League Player of the Year honors at Princeton, told The IX Basketball. “And that kid, literally all she’s ever done is find success, and it’s just not going to stop. It’s just ingrained in who she is. She’ll figure it out.”

---

The IX Basketball, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom powered by The Next

The IX Basketball: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

---

Growing up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Dietrick-Seifert was originally a lacrosse star. She graduated from Wellesley High School in 2011 as its all-time leading scorer in both basketball and lacrosse, but she and those around her agree that lacrosse was her best sport. USA Lacrosse named her a first-team All-American three times.

She was initially recruited to Princeton for lacrosse, but she contacted Banghart and asked if Banghart would consider taking her for basketball. There was just something incredibly appealing about basketball, she said — partly the sport’s bigger stage, and partly the fact that it didn’t come as naturally to her.

“I think a little part of me wanted the challenge,” Dietrick-Seifert said. “I kind of knew I could do it in lacrosse. I wanted to see if I could hack it with basketball.”

Banghart was skeptical, but she told the 5’10 guard to come to one of Princeton’s camps for an evaluation. So Dietrick-Seifert visited campus and got a tour from the lacrosse staff — including assistant coach Michele DeJuliis, who is now Banghart’s wife. DeJuliis sensed what was coming: When she dropped Dietrick-Seifert off at Banghart’s office the day before camp started, she told Dietrick-Seifert that it was probably the last time they’d see each other. 

Sure enough, Banghart’s skepticism evaporated the following day.

“By noon that day, the very first day of camp, I was like, ‘Nope, not only will I recruit her, I need her,’” Banghart said. “Because she was going 100 miles an hour for every drill, every time, all the time. I was like, ‘This kid you can win with.’”

Dietrick-Seifert still played some lacrosse for Princeton, joining the team after the basketball season ended in her sophomore and junior years. But she became a foundational piece for Banghart. Over Dietrick-Seifert’s four years, the basketball Tigers won three Ivy League titles and lost just four conference games.

She averaged just 8.3 minutes per game as a first-year and started just six games as a sophomore. But she kept improving. She added a pull-up to complement her 3-point shooting, became a better passer and handled the ball better.

“I remember her in her sophomore year turning the ball over too much,” Banghart said. “And then I couldn’t live a possession without her.”

Dietrick-Seifert started all 62 games in her final two seasons, was a two-time first-team All-Ivy selection, and was the Ivy League Player of the Year as a senior in 2014-15. That year, she averaged 15.1 points, 4.9 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 48.9% from the field.

Dietrick-Seifert also captained the 2014-15 team, which went 30-0 in the regular season. “Of course we were 30-0,” Banghart said. “Blake doesn’t lose.”

The Tigers entered the AP poll on Jan. 5, 2015, and rose as high as No. 13 in March. However, they received just a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They advanced to the second round, but even Dietrick-Seifert’s 26 points on 10-for-18 shooting and three steals couldn’t will them past top-seeded Maryland.

“She’s one of the most fierce competitors I’ve ever met,” Columbia head coach Megan Griffith, who coached Dietrick-Seifert as a Princeton assistant, told The IX Basketball.

Camille Zimmerman was a first-year at Columbia in 2014-15 and lost to Dietrick-Seifert and that Princeton team twice.

“I gotta say, I did not like her,” Zimmerman told The IX Basketball. “There’s very few people I feel that way about. But I just — you know Princeton. Everyone hates Princeton. They beat you by so much. And I was such a believer every time I went into a game. I said, ‘OK, we’re gonna win this time.’ … So it was brutal. And she led the helm.”

In one of the matchups, Zimmerman said then-Columbia head coach Stephanie Glance had the Lions run a stall offense to try to stay in the game longer. Still, Princeton won both games by at least 19 points, and it won all but two games that season by at least 10.

“It was like, ‘How is this girl getting so many open layups?’” Zimmerman said of Dietrick-Seifert. “She wasn’t doing anything fancy. … Lindsay Whalen kind of played like that. There’s a couple point guards it’s just like, if they play so well as a passer, as a leader … then when they get theirs, it just feels too easy. So I think that was part of the frustration.”

Banghart saw Dietrick-Seifert become a great leader that season by realizing that not everyone was as competitive as she was. Once Dietrick-Seifert realized that, she figured out how to push her teammates more effectively and raise everyone’s game.

“She didn’t see them through her lens. She saw them through theirs,” Banghart said. “I think she really learned that, which made her an unbelievable leader and … a great teammate. And not like singing ‘Kumbaya’ and shit, but making people better.”

---

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to The IX Sports and receive our daily women’s sports newsletter covering soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers. That includes Basketball Wednesday from founder and editor Howard Megdal.

Readers of The IX Basketball now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

---

After Dietrick-Seifert’s college basketball career ended against Maryland, she gave up her final lacrosse season to prepare for the WNBA Draft. She ultimately wasn’t drafted — something she and Banghart have starkly different opinions on. For Dietrick-Seifert, it wasn’t a disappointment because she knew she had options overseas, and she wasn’t sure she deserved to be drafted.

Banghart rejects that idea.

“It goes back to the disrespect that people had for Ivy League basketball at the time,” she said. “… The fact that she wasn’t a first-round draft pick has nothing to do with her, quite honestly. … If she was in the Ivy League today, like right now, she would be a first-round draft pick.”

Instead, Dietrick-Seifert made her own path to the WNBA. The only Ivy League to WNBA example she had at the time was Harvard’s Allison Feaster, who was drafted fifth overall in 1998 and played 10 WNBA seasons.

Following the draft in 2015, two WNBA teams signed Dietrick-Seifert, but she was waived without playing in any regular-season games. In 2016, she played in three total games for the Seattle Storm and the San Antonio Stars. No one signed her in 2017, but in 2018, she made the Atlanta Dream roster for the full season.

“I didn’t know if Blake was good enough to make our team, but I thought she was someone who brought a little something different,” Baylor head coach Nicki Collen, who coached that Dream team, told The IX Basketball. “… I thought Blake’s versatility on the perimeter and her pace could be potentially really good. … [She was] someone that could just bring a different energy into the gym. And … every day in training camp, she made me want to keep her.”

“With Nicki and the Dream, I just found a place where my skill set was highly valued,” Dietrick-Seifert said. “… She wanted to play fast, she wanted to run in transition, she wanted people who could defend, and she wanted guards who could shoot the three. And so that’s my M.O.”

Dietrick-Seifert didn’t play a ton that season, averaging just 7.2 minutes per game. But she was someone the team could count on. After star forward/guard Angel McCoughtry tore her ACL that August, Collen and her staff had to figure out who would inbound the ball in pressure moments — something McCoughtry had always done.

They decided it would be Dietrick-Seifert, and Collen pulled her aside before the next game to tell her to be ready for that role.

“Well, we were in a close game [that night],” Collen said, “and Blake, I think, inbounded the ball successfully at least three times with Candace Parker up on the ball. … It’s just kind of who she was: Whatever you needed, she would do, but she just brought the same energy.”

In the eight games Dietrick-Seifert played after McCoughtry’s injury, including three in the playoffs, she had just one turnover in over 58 total minutes.

In 2019, Dietrick-Seifert nearly made the team again, but Collen felt compelled to keep point guard Maite Cazorla instead of Dietrick-Seifert, who’d played more off the ball. Collen couldn’t bear to deliver the news in a formal meeting; instead, she and Dietrick-Seifert ate acai bowls together and talked.

Dietrick-Seifert signed with Seattle again, and though she made her first career start that season, she averaged only 6.2 minutes per game and struggled with her shot. Meanwhile, Atlanta finished 8-26, and when Collen asked her players in exit interviews what they thought was missing, they said they missed Dietrick-Seifert.

“I think they understood the impact of someone who is always lifting others,” Collen said. “… If you look at the history of the league, people aren’t talking about 11th and 12th players. … But sometimes those players can impact a roster in a significant way.”

Collen brought Dietrick-Seifert back in 2020, when the Dream’s roster for the WNBA bubble was decimated by injuries and opt-outs. She needed players who would compete, and that was Dietrick-Seifert. It didn’t hurt that Dietrick-Seifert was, in Collen’s estimation, probably the best-conditioned player she’s ever had.

That ended up being Dietrick-Seifert’s best WNBA season, as she averaged 21.0 minutes per game off the bench and put up 5.9 points, 3.4 assists and 1.6 rebounds per game. She also made 44.8% of her 3-pointers, which ranked seventh in the league. Collen said she sensed a different confidence in Dietrick-Seifert and saw her growth as a point guard when some injuries in the bubble forced Dietrick-Seifert into more minutes there.

After the 2020 season, Dietrick-Seifert briefly retired and worked at Converse, but basketball wanted her back. She re-signed with the Dream late in the 2021 season and played in nine games for interim head coach Darius Taylor. Then she debuted for USA Basketball in 3×3 that November and balanced 3×3 and overseas 5×5 for the rest of her career. She earned one more WNBA training camp contract in 2024 with the Los Angeles Sparks, but she was cut just before the season started.

Playing 5×5 overseas throughout her career gave Dietrick-Seifert room to develop and take on a bigger role. She played in the top leagues in Italy, Australia, Greece, Spain and France and appeared in over 30 games in EuroCup, Europe’s second-best continental competition. Those experiences helped Dietrick-Seifert grow off the court, too.

“When I was in college, I would not go to the dining hall by myself,” she said. “I needed someone to come with me. … Overseas, I had to get over that really quick. Lots of time alone, lots of time to think your own thoughts and [be] in your own head. … Now I love to travel, I’m comfortable in my own head and with my own thoughts, and I feel like just a much more well-rounded person.”

For Dietrick-Seifert, representing the United States in 3×3 was also incredibly meaningful, especially because her husband, Greg Seifert, is in the military. “I just never thought that would happen for me,” she said. She won gold medals with Team USA at the 2021 FIBA AmeriCup and the 2023 Pan American Games.

Putting aside their Ivy League rivalry to be USA teammates, Dietrick-Seifert and Zimmerman developed an uncanny chemistry on the court and a sisterly friendship off of it. They even complemented each other in how they scouted opponents: Dietrick-Seifert quickly picked up players’ tendencies, and Zimmerman dissected opponents’ plays.

“[She’s] probably the first player in a really long time that I’ve just had chemistry with,” Zimmerman said. “… The highlights I have [are] usually a fancy pass to Blake, and I’ll literally set plays up knowing I could throw this behind my back and probably Blake’s gonna go and get it, even if it’s a bad pass.”

And when Zimmerman spoke with The IX Basketball, she was wearing an outfit Dietrick-Seifert had picked out for her. “She’s transformed my wardrobe,” Zimmerman said, along with teaching Zimmerman about hair and makeup and being a confidante for many basketball and life decisions.

Dietrick-Seifert and Zimmerman were both contending for the 2024 3×3 Olympic team and helped push 3×3 forward. Zimmerman noted how Dietrick-Seifert had even helped then-TCU guard Hailey Van Lith learn the intricacies of 3×3 well enough to make the Olympic team.

For Dietrick-Seifert, the end of that Olympic cycle felt like a natural time to wind down her career.

 “After … not making the team, I kind of felt like I had hit my ceiling with basketball,” she said. “I had done everything I wanted to do, because I had a great time in the WNBA earlier in my career, and then a great time on the national team later and overseas over that whole time. So I … was ready to make an impact in a different way and maybe slow down a little bit with the travel and put down roots.”

Even after retiring, Dietrick-Seifert’s impact reverberates everywhere she’s been. Both Banghart and Collen said she’s one of their families’ favorite players ever, even though DeJuliis faced the disappointment of her choosing basketball. Dietrick-Seifert still keeps in touch with the mother of a Spanish teammate who once hosted her for Christmas when she was playing overseas. And Collen wrote a letter of recommendation for Dietrick-Seifert’s business school applications, four years after coaching her for the final time.

For Banghart, Dietrick-Seifert’s WNBA success made it easier to recruit players to Princeton who had professional aspirations. In essence, Dietrick-Seifert made the roadmap she herself didn’t have.

“She was a good enough athlete that had to learn how to play college basketball,” Banghart said. “And then she learned how to play college basketball, and then she annihilated it, just like then she had to go and play in the W and learn how to be a pro, and that took some time. And then once she learned how to be a pro, she annihilated it. …

“She never stopped competing, never stopped learning. She’s the kid that’s, like, twitching while you’re talking to her, because she’s ready to go do what you’re asking.”

Carlie Littlefield was one of the younger players who followed in Dietrick-Seifert’s footsteps. Littlefield didn’t play in the WNBA but has carved out an overseas career in 5×5 and played alongside Dietrick-Seifert in 3×3.

Littlefield told The IX Basketball that she and many of her Princeton teammates were “really intimidated” by Dietrick-Seifert because of her resume and toughness. But Littlefield realized when they played together that Dietrick-Seifert wasn’t intimidating at all.

“We just heard stories of how demanding of a leader she was, and she asked a lot of her teammates, which is what made those teams so great,” Littlefield said. “… [But] she kind of knows how to flip that switch. She can joke around with you, but when it’s time to perform, she knows how to get the best out of you.

“So I learned a lot just about being a leader, because … I don’t like to be that hardcore, that demanding. But … playing with her, [I was] seeing how she’s able to walk that fine line.”

Dietrick-Seifert said seeing players like Littlefield, Abby Meyers and Kaitlyn Chen — “my younger Princeton sisters” — succeed professionally is something she’s particularly proud of. Those three all took different paths, but they’re thriving in part because Dietrick-Seifert proved what was possible.

---

Your business can reach over 3 million women’s sports fans every single month!

Here at The IX Basketball and The IX Sports, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women’s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, reach out to our team at BAlarie@theixsports.com to discuss ways to work together.

---

Now, Dietrick-Seifert is enjoying being back in class for the first time since college. She chose Virginia over Duke largely because it uses the case method, in which students discuss a real example of the concept they’re learning rather than listen to a professor lecture.

“You’re hearing so much from your fellow students and learning from their real-world experience and how everyone sees the case differently,” Dietrick-Seifert said. “But you also have to be comfortable raising your hand and participating without full information, or even when you’re not 100% sure of your answer.

“And so I think in that way, it really prepares you for the business world … So for me, knowing I had so much to learn because I have very little corporate experience, I was like, ‘I need to learn in the best way possible.’”

In the fall quarter, Dietrick-Seifert’s favorite classes were marketing and operations. She also quickly found a competitive outlet in the Darden Cup, a year-round intramural competition for students. As a representative for her team, Dietrick-Seifert schedules practices and selects lineups for the activities.

Tennis, pickleball and lawn games have already been part of the Darden Cup — and basketball is up in February.