While the season is over for Ohio State women’s basketball, the WNBA starts soon. On Monday, the league held its college entry draft, and for the fourth season in a row it included a Buckeye. The Los Angeles selected Cincinnati, Ohio native Chance Gray with the No. 24 in the second round, becoming the fifth Ohio State player chosen in the last four years.
While Gray started her basketball journey in Ohio, the guard left for the Oregon Ducks in her first two seasons of NCAA basketball. When the guard decided to return, Gray chose Ohio State to play for head coach Kevin McGuff’s Buckeyes.
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In Gray’s first season, the guard played mainly a shooting guard role, with a heavy emphasis on the shooting. With point guard Jaloni Cambridge and forward Cotie McMahon, Gray was not tasked with much outside of parking outside of the arc and taking deep shots.
Gray had a quiet junior season with 12 points per game on 34.8% shooting from beyond the arc. Later in the season, Gray played less minutes as confidence waned with tough shooting performances. In the guard’s senior season, the full game of Gray was on full display.
Starting next to Cambridge again, Gray provided the lone senior starting role for McGuff’s side. Gray scored a career high 14.7 points on a career high 45.3% shooting. With more freedom in the offense, Gray’s three-point shooting hit a personal best 40.5% in NCAA play.
The Ohio State graduate is the second player to get drafted from Ohio State to the Los Angeles Sparks. Gray joins program legend Jantel Lavender with the distinction. Also, the fourth season in a row with a pick in the draft is a team record. Before this recent run, the Buckeyes had three seasons in a row with selections, four different times. Gray follows forward Taylor Thierry (2025), guards Jacy Sheldon and Celeste Taylor (2024) and guard Taylor Mikesell (2023) in the current streak of picks.
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Los Angeles struggled with a 21-23 record in the first season with former McGuff recruit at Washington in guard Kelsey Plum. However, this season the side added Nneka Ogwumike, the former Sparks forward who left for Seattle before returning to Los Angeles this offseason.
Outside of Gray, Monday night featured another player who once donned scarlet and gray. Former Buckeye Cotie McMahon went No. 11 in the draft to the Washington Mystics, joining UCLA center Lauren Betts, who was the first of six UCLA Bruins selected on the evening. The National Championship-winning Bruins broke a WNBA record with six players chosen. Alongside McMahon and Betts in Washington is forward Angela Dugalic. The Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year for the Bruins went two spots before McMahon at No. 9 overall.
In past seasons, making a WNBA team was a tall task with only 12 spots on 12 teams just two years ago. This season the league went up to 15 teams, and with the most recent CBA negotiations, added two developmental spots on each roster. That gives Gray higher odds to make it onto a team, when a second round pick in most previous years came with an even larger uphill climb.
The selection came as somewhat of a surprise, when compared to the sea of mock drafts. ESPN had Gray going late in the third, and final, round. It makes the mid second round selection somewhat of a surprise for Buckeye fans.
