LOS ANGELES – Fresh off a national championship, five Bruins have booked flights to New York to be there in person to hear their names called on Draft Day.
Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice, Gabriela Jaquez, Gianna Kneepkens and Angela Dugalic have all been invited to attend the 2026 WNBA Draft, where the next phases of their careers are set to begin.
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The draft will be begin at 4 pm PDT on April 13, with the festivities kicking off with a special “Orange Carpet” event, where the invited athletes will have a chance to show off their personalities and introduce themselves to the WNBA world, per a release.
Charlisse Leger-Walker was the only one of UCLA’s six seniors that was not invited to the event, although Leger-Walker is still projected to be a high second round pick after a graduate season where she acted as the field general for UCLA’s championship-winning squad and averaged 8.6 points, 5.6 assists and four rebounds per game.
A team of seniors
The greatest strength of the Bruins this season has been their wealth of experience due to the entire starting five plus their best option off the bench in Dugalic all being seniors or above.
That experience and their time spent together helped them not only with their offensive synergy, but together they combined to be the most oppressive defensive presence in the NCAA this season on their way to the championship.
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The fact that realistically five of their six seniors could be first round picks in this year’s draft speaks to the magnitude of talent that UCLA head coach Cori Close was able to roster and upon reflection it’s no surprise that the Bruins were able to steamroll South Carolina in the national championship game in Phoenix.
The Dallas Wings will pick first in the draft, followed by the Minnesota Lynx at No.2, Seattle Storm at No. 3, Washington Mystics at No. 4 and Chicago Sky at No. 5.
The WNBA’s two newest teams, the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, will pick at six and seven, respectively.
It’s been a wild ride for the Bruins in the handful of days since they won the championship from celebrations to special visits to both Los Angeles NBA teams and there’s still more to come with the Bruins scheduled to appear at a Los Angeles Dodgers’ game later this week, but the upcoming draft will truly be one of the last chances for this historic core to be together.
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Today, they’re Bruins. But after April 13, they’ll be spread across the country.
