WNBA Draft winners and losers: A star-studded crowd, the Valkyries' Flau'jae fumble, GOATs and more
UCLA won the night with its six draftees in attendance, while the Valkyries are getting the wrong kind of attention for their Flau'jae Johnson trade.
NEW YORK — Eight days after winning the program’s first NCAA championship , UCLA and head coach Cori Close became the first team to have six players selected in a single WNBA Draft. They also became the second team with three consecutive picks. It’s hard to declare any other entity as the biggest victor of the night, all respect to Azzi Fudd as the 30th No.
1 overall pick in a draft mired in uncertainty at the top. Close remained standing and clapping at the front of The Shed’s auditorium set-up as Lauren Betts (No. 4 to Washington), Gabriela Jaquez (No.
5 to Chicago) and Kiki Rice (No. 6 to Toronto) went off the board. She stood to the left of the stage watching as her players waited at tables with gold-paneled Wilson basketballs featuring their names carved into the leather before they were quickly called by Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Betts’ ceiling had long been the end of the lottery, but Rice was the expected next UCLA player to go as a long point guard who put up career bests in her final collegiate season. Instead, it was Jaquez who skyrocketed up the projections after a standout title game in which she had 21 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists. Her senior season was also a career-year and she’ll have an opportunity to impact immediately after the Sky raised eyebrows in a better way than they’re used to by signing veterans Skylar Diggins and Azurá Stevens.
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