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New York
CNN
—
Excitement for girls’s basketball is probably the best it’s ever been.
And now, most of the stars from the NCAA girls’s basketball match – together with Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, LSU’s Angel Reese and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso – are taking their abilities to the WNBA.
As anticipated, Clark, who helped appeal to record-breaking TV audiences and sellouts in arenas across the nation in her closing collegiate season, was selected No. 1 total by the Indiana Fever within the WNBA draft Monday on the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.
“I got a little anxious there before the pick,” Clark mentioned on the ESPN broadcast. She later added: “I’ve dreamed of this moment since I was in second grade. It’s taken a lot of hard work, a lot of ups and downs, but more than anything, just trying to soak it in.”
Brink went No. 2 total to the Los Angeles Sparks. The Chicago Sky, choosing third, took Cardoso, whereas Rickea Jackson of Tennessee went No. 4 to the Sparks. Rounding out the highest 5, the Dallas Wings selected Ohio State’s Jacy Sheldon.
Cardoso, who’s from Brazil, was emotional when reflecting on leaving her residence nation again when she was 15 to pursue her skilled basketball dream.
Sarah Stier/Getty Images
Kamilla Cardoso poses with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected as the third total choose by the Chicago Sky.
“I had a goal to be here tonight and give my family a better life, so I’m just so thankful that I was able to be here,” she advised ESPN via tears.
UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards went sixth total to the Washington Mystics. Reese, in the meantime, landed with the Sky at No. 7, becoming a member of forces with fellow rookie Cardoso. Reese was the 2023 Final Four Most Outstanding Player when LSU gained the nationwide title, with Cardoso incomes the glory this yr after South Carolina accomplished an undefeated season and gained this system’s third nationwide championship.
“Coming back (to LSU) would have been amazing for me, but I wanted more for myself,” Reese mentioned. “I wished to begin over. I really feel like I had been on a excessive since (profitable) the nationwide championship, and I would like to hit all-time low.
“I want to be a rookie again. I want to be knocked down by vets, and I want to be able to get up and grow and be a sponge. I’m just super excited to play with the amazing players and against amazing players.”
Sarah Stier/Getty Images
Angel Reese celebrates with LSU head coach Kim Mulkey after being selected as the seventh total choose by the Sky.
Utah’s Alissa Pili went to the Minnesota Lynx at No. 8. Two gamers from France accomplished the highest 10: The Wings selected Carla Leite at No. 9, and the Connecticut Sun with the tenth choose selected Leila Lacan.
The crowd roared for the hometown New York Liberty’s choose, going with Marquesha Davis of Ole Miss at No. 11. To full the primary spherical, the Atlanta Dream selected Australian Nyadiew Puoch with the twelfth choose.
The buzz round Clark, who can be paired with final yr’s No. 1 total choose, Aliyah Boston, comes with weighty expectations – and potential for extra nationwide audiences. On Wednesday, the WNBA introduced 36 of the Fever’s 40 video games can be featured by the WNBA’s nationwide broadcast and streaming companions.
“Caitlin is one of the most naturally gifted basketball players I have ever seen enter the WNBA from the college level,” Fever head coach Christie Sides mentioned. “Her shooting and passing abilities captivated an entire audience of basketball fans, and her ability to make those around her better was even more evident during her collegiate career. We can’t wait to bring her to Indiana and incorporate her into our locker room with a group ready to get back to the postseason.”
The Fever had one of many worst data within the league final season, however with a tandem of Boston and Clark, it may very well be one of many hottest tickets in sports activities.
“I certainly know the pressure is there. I’m aware of it,” Clark advised CNN on the Orange Carpet forward of the draft. (*1*)
Clark is just not the one motive why curiosity within the sport has grown. Far from it.
In the common season and NCAA match, there have been a number of school stars who delivered on the massive stage – like Cardoso, Reese and Brink.
Meanwhile, the WNBA has been stuffed with stars for the reason that league’s inception. That hasn’t modified as the league enters its twenty eighth season.
But an enormous distinction lately on the skilled and school stage is how way more accessible they’re to watch (and the quantity of media protection they get).
“I know people keep saying it’s a historic draft class, but I think we need to look back at the draft class(es) before us as well because they’re the women we grew up watching,” Brink advised CNN on the Orange Carpet. “So, we do it for them. They are the trailblazers and while this draft class is amazing and I could not be more proud of us, it’s the women before us who have really been doing it.”
Tickets for Monday’s WNBA draft offered out in lower than half-hour.
Ahead of Monday’s draft, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert mentioned the league’s aim is to broaden to 16 groups and mentioned she is “pretty confident” that might occur by 2028. Currently at 12 groups, the league will broaden to 13 in 2025 with a crew being added within the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2023, the WNBA had its most-watched common season in 21 years, and the season-ending WNBA Finals was the most-viewed Finals in 20 years. WNBA attendance was up 16% for the 2023 season in contrast to 2022.
Adam Hunger/AP
From left, Reese, Caitlin Clark and Stanford’s Cameron Brink pose for a photograph earlier than the beginning of the WNBA draft.
“I love where the game is going right now and I just want to be a part of the growth,” Reese advised CNN on the Orange Carpet. “Whatever happens, I just want to be a part of it.”
Meanwhile, the NCAA girls’s match title sport between South Carolina and Iowa drew almost 19 million common viewers, shattering data to grow to be the most-watched girls’s school basketball sport ever measured by Nielsen.
The sport not solely eclipsed the lads’s closing between Purdue and UConn by greater than 4 million viewers, but it surely was additionally the most-viewed basketball sport of the previous 5 years, outpacing any NBA contest throughout that interval, in accordance to Nielsen.
After final yr’s heartbreaking nationwide championship sport defeat, Clark’s final dance with the Hawkeyes nearly resulted in fairytale style.
Although Iowa ultimately fell on the closing hurdle once more – this time by the hands of undefeated South Carolina – Clark’s 2023-24 marketing campaign highlighted the impression she’s had on girls’s basketball via her recognition and skillset.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images/File
Clark loved a historic 2023-24 season with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
She turned the all-time main scorer in each males’s and girls’s Division I school basketball throughout the previous season, was named Naismith Player of the Year for the second consecutive season and had been named to the USA Basketball Women’s National Team’s 14-player coaching camp roster, maybe paving the best way for an Olympics look at Paris 2024. However, Clark was unable to take part as a result of it was held the identical week as the Final Four.
And now, with Clark within the WNBA, that pleasure has been pushed ahead to what she may obtain within the professionals.
Will Clark’s sport on the skilled stage translate to rising curiosity? Signs level that approach. But different gamers make that occur, too.
This story has been up to date with extra info.
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