UCLA makes history for most players drafted with Conneticut Sun drafting Charlisse Leger-Walker
The Connecticut Sun selected Charlisse Leger-Walker with the 18th overall pick in the second round of the 2026 WNBA Draft. She’s the sixth UCLA player to be drafted into the WNBA on Monday.
Five of her teammates — Lauren Betts, Gabriela Jaquez, Angela Dugalic, Kiki Rice and Gianna Kneepkens — were all selected in the first round. No team has ever had six players selected in a single draft before this year.
Moreover, Leger-Walker’s pick also makes her the first-ever New Zealand native to be selected into the WNBA. History all around for her as she head to the Sun.
This massive moment for UCLA women’s basketball history comes just over a week after the Bruins won the national championship in a blowout win over South Carolina. It was the first-ever NCAA title for UCLA after consecutive Final Four appearances in 2025 and 2026.
“It’s not about me,” UCLA head coach Cori Close, who pieced this team together, said after winning her first national title. “It’s about watching these incredible young women be dream chasers, to watch them grow in ways that they will remember and it will stick with them for the rest of their lives.
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“It’s about their work and their habits yielding. We say this, we want to recruit courageous — gets me choked up. There were a lot of times we wondered if it could be true. I said I wanted to find uncommon, courageous women that were willing to make uncommon choices that maybe possibly could yield an uncommon result, and today it did.”
As for Leger-Walker, she played four seasons at Washington State before transferring to UCLA. However, she was a key piece to the Bruins’ title run averaging 14.4 points per game to go along with5.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists.
In fact, she’ll be teaming up with former UCLA teammate, Gianna Kneepkens. She was also selected No. 15, the last pick in the first round. Her selection made UCLA the first team to ever have five players taken in the first round. Previously, UConn had four after the 2001-02 season.