She was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her parents are Jeff and Marie Wilson and she has one brother Jeff Wilson III and one sister Alana Bentley. Her biological father is Albert Bentley former NFL player for the Indianapolis Colts. She attended Indiana Fever games as a young girl, and later as an intern for the team. In high school, she helped her team earn a 30-0 record, a state championship, and a No. 1 ranking in the USA Today Super 25 poll. She averaged 15.7 points, 2.6 assists, 2.2 steals, and 3.2 rebounds in her senior year at Ben Davis High School Bentley was also named a Third Team Parade Magazine High School All-American. In the 2011-12 season, she earned All-Big Ten first team selection for the second time in her career, making her one of the nine players in school history with multiple first team accolades.
College career
While at Penn State, Bentley led the Big Ten in steals. Bentley majored in broadcast journalism and minored in sociology while at Penn State. She was the fourth player in Big Ten History and the second player in school history with 1,500 points, 500 assists, and 300 steals. During the 2010-11 season Alex Bentley became the eleventh Lady Lion in school history to earn a first team all big ten selection from the coaches. In Bentley's first Big Ten game against Nebraska during the 2011-2012 season she got a then career-high 8 steals. That was the most steals a Lady Lion had acquired in approximately ten years. During the 2010-11 season Bentley became the eleventh Lady Lion in school history to earn a first team all big ten selection from the coaches. She finished in the top fifteen of the big ten in scoring, assists, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, steals, and assist-to-turnover ratio.
Penn State statistics
Source
Year
Team
GP
Points
FG%
3P%
FT%
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
PPG
2009-10
Penn State
31
365
44.5%
31.3%
60.0%
2.7
4.0
1.6
0.3
11.8
2010-11
Penn State
35
505
44.6%
34.9%
79.8%
2.7
5.0
2.0
0.3
14.4
2011-12
Penn State
33
465
42.3%
30.2%
68.4%
2.7
4.7
3.0
0.2
14.1
2012-13
Penn State
32
451
40.9%
28.1%
81.5%
3.4
3.5
3.4
0.3
14.1
Career
142
1786
56.7%
0.0%
64.3%
5.6
1.2
0.9
0.9
12.6
Professional career
WNBA
Bentley was selected with the 13th overall pick in the second round of the 2013 WNBA draft by the Atlanta Dream. In her rookie regular season she played in 34 games and started 10 of them. She averaged 22 minutes, 1.4 rebounds, 2.8 assist, and 8.3 points per game in her first regular season as a reserve for the Dream. The Dream were second in the Eastern Conference and advanced all the way to the 2013 WNBA Finals but were swept by the Minnesota Lynx. Bentley averaged 17.5 minutes, 5.8 points, 2.0 assists and 1.8 rebounds per game in her rookie postseason. In 2014, Bentley was acquired by the Connecticut Sun in a three-team trade, which sent Matee Ajavon and the Washington Mystics' 2014 second round draft pick to the Dream, as well as Kara Lawson and the Dream's 2014 third round draft pick to the Mystics. In her first season with the Sun, Bentley became the team's starting point guard. She finished the season averaging 12.2 points per game and a career-high 3.7 assists per game. In 2015, Bentley was moved to the shooting guard position in the Sun's starting lineup with the arrival of Jasmine Thomas. During the 2015 season, Bentley was voted into the 2015 WNBA All-Star Game, making it her first all-star appearance, and averaged a career-high 14.7 points per game by the end of the season. Also during the season, she scored a career-high 31 points in a win against the Washington Mystics. In 2016, Bentley started in all 34 games for the first time in her career, averaging 12.9 points per game. In a triple overtime loss to the Washington Mystics, Bentley tied her career-high of 31 points in 48 minutes of play. In 2017, Bentley re-signed with the Sun in free agency once her rookie contract expired. During the 2017 season, Bentley played mostly from the bench, starting in 9 of 31 games and averaging 8.4 ppg. The Sun finished with a 21-13 record as the number four seed in the league, making it the first time since 2012 making the playoffs. They received a bye to the second round elimination game, where they were defeated 88-83 by the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury. In 2018, Bentley was traded to the Atlanta Dream in July. After a season with Atlanta, she signed to the Las Vegas Aces but was waived before the season began.
