It’s been over a year and a half now since Kelsey Mitchell bid adieu to her father, Mark Mitchell. Having served as a longtime high school and college basketball coach, Mark Mitchell was instrumental in getting her daughter interested in the sport and built a foundation that has today allowed Kelsey to be a renowned name in the WNBA world. “That was my best friend, and we did everything together. We kind of lived through each other on so many levels. He was my father, but we could talk about everything. And it sucks. Man, it sucks,” said Kelsey Mitchell back in September 2024. So, now, as the 29-year-old is currently at an important stage of her WNBA career, she couldn’t help but remember her mentor.
The Indiana Fever recently won Game 1 of their Semi-Finals series against the Las Vegas Aces. After the win, Mitchell participated in a Q&A session with the media, reflecting on how grateful she is to her team’s supportive culture. Amid the conversation, her father naturally came to mind. With heartfelt reflection, she said, “To know people believe in me? You gotta know how that feels like bc for a long time, nobody did… My dad was the only one. Then you find somebody else to replace that — it’s big for me.”
Mark Mitchell played football at Eastern Kentucky. It was there that he met his future wife, Cheryl. As a standout lineman, Mark attended a few NFL tryouts, but never made a roster. Eventually, he became a high school basketball coach and gym teacher throughout the Cincinnati area.
Kelsey’s grandpa would drive her from Princeton High School, where she studied, to Taft High School near downtown, where Mark was a physical education teacher and the boys’ basketball coach. She practiced with his father’s players and did individual work with him that included speed training and endurance drills. “My dad trained me my whole life,” Kelsey once said. “I’m the blueprint of what he taught. It’s all of me.” At night, Kelsey would come into her parents’ room to watch films from her AAU tournaments.
Eventually, when Kelsey Mitchell went to Ohio State, her twin sister, Chelsea, was also there, while Mark Mitchell served as an assistant to coach Kevin McGuff. “Her dad was a terrific teacher of the game and really good at skill development,” McGuff recalled. “She was working on her skills from the time she could walk. It was a beautiful thing to see how much her game grew under his tutelage.”
In Game 1 against the Aces, as Kelsey Mitchell won the first semifinal game of her career, her father’s influence was bound to come back to her. Mitchell scored 34 points on 12-of-23 shooting, drilling four threes as well, in what turned out to be a history-making performance. Her outing included-
First-career 30-point playoff game.
the second-highest scoring output by a Fever player in playoff history
the most points ever by a WNBA player in their first career semifinal game
After years of playing under the radar with a team that only last year started gaining momentum, Kelsey Mitchell’s perseverance is finally paying off. She could have walked away, as many players in similar situations do, but now, finally, she’s experiencing the rewards of her patience. Reflecting on her journey, Mitchell said, “That’s the growth. That’s the experience, that’s the being at the bottom of the barrel, that’s the not being on anybody’s radar and being a loser. So I’ve seen that. I know what that looks like.”
That mentality? That patience? It’s owed to her father again. As she once said, “My dad prepared me for every kind of moment. Anything you throw at me, I’m going to get back up.”
Kelsey Mitchell Left Caitlin Clark and Stephanie White In Awe After A 34-point Performance
Kelsey Mitchell has played in 6 losing seasons with the Indiana Fever. After the team drafted Caitlin Clark, it felt that their fortunes would change. That is, until Clark sustained a right groin injury and was ruled out for the rest of the season earlier this month. Fortunately, not looking to increase the streak to 7, Kelsey Mitchell took charge. Despite Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon’s warning that “They haven’t seen the real Aces yet”, the Fever star didn’t hold back.
Kelsey Mitchell led the scoring effort for her team during Game 1 of the Fever-Aces Semi-Finals series by scoring 34 points, 1 rebound, and 3 assists during 34 minutes of playtime. She shot 12-23 (52.2%) field goals, 4-6 (66.7%) 3-pointers, and 6-6 (100.0%) free throws. With this feat, Kelsey Mitchell became the player to make the most points in her WNBA Semifinal debut. Her performance even earned her a shoutout from Caitlin Clark. The 23-year-old took to X after the game and wrote “Kelsey unreal”.
Even with Clark active, Kelsey Mitchell was the driving force for the Indiana Fever during the 2025 regular season. She led the franchise in minutes, logged 1,381 across all 44 games she started in, and broke the franchise record for most points in a single season. She became Indiana’s all-time leader in career three-pointers with 669, ranking eighth in WNBA history. Additionally, Mitchell also set a new team mark for career 30+ point games. She notched 11 and surpassed Tamika Catchings again. If there was someone more impressed than Clark, it was the head coach.
“There have been multiple times this season where she’s put us on her back, and she’s carried us as we’ve gone through that,” said Stephanie White. “She’s continued to lead and pour into everybody else and you see days like today, where we get production from multiple people, that’s what it’s going to take for us to be successful. But Kelsey is definitely the head of the snake for us.”
A few more games remain to be won before Kelsey Mitchell can reach the WNBA Finals. If the Indiana Fever star does manage to do that, then there can be no better tribute to her father.