basketball

5 WNBA Draft Sleepers To Watch After The NCAA Final Four

Yahoo Sports

The 2026 WNBA Draft is no stranger to sleepers. There's plenty of room for teams to pick these talented hopefuls that are flying under the radar ahead of Monday night.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA - APRIL 05: Charlisse Leger-Walker #5 and Gabriela Jaquez #11 of the UCLA Bruins celebrate after the victory against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the National Championship of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament at Mortgage Matchup Center on April 05, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) Getty Images The 2026 WNBA Draft is days away, and a pool containing some of the best female hoopers awaits to hear their names called within 45 selections. These newcomers enter the league at a monumental season.

Apart from successfully enacting a new collective bargaining agreement, the WNBA continues to grow tenfold. With new teams in Portland and Toronto set to debut this year, the league also announced expansion franchises in Cleveland, Detroit, and Atlanta to round out to 18 camps across the league by 2030. With the last two draft classes including the likes of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers, this year's batch is nowhere short of popularity.

Names such as Azzi Fudd, Flau’jae Johnson, Olivia Miles, and Lauren Betts are sure-fire first-rounders coming off notable collegiate careers. Furthermore, international stars such as Awa Fam, Frieda Bühner, and others will look to leave their mark Stateside by entering this year's draft. But if we learned anything from previous iterations of the prestigious selection ceremony, it’s that popularity does not often lead to results.

More often than not, highly touted prospects struggle to live up to their hype. On the flip side, unsung aspirants thrive without the pressures of the media and focus on helping their teams while working on their individual success. The 2026 WNBA Draft is no stranger to sleepers.

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