Clark, Bueckers headline loaded 2024 WNBA draft class

The 2024 WNBA draft class is potentially shaping up to be one of the best yet.

However, the quality of that elite group of prospects hinges on whether the top players in the class decide to declare as opposed to returning for another NCAA season, especially with athletes being given the choice to play a fifth season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watch South Carolina take on Notre Dame as the NCAA women's basketball regular season gets underway LIVE Monday at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on TSN4/5 and streaming on TSN.ca and the TSN App. 

TSN Basketball analyst Tamika Nurse, who played four NCAA seasons split between Oregon and Bowling Green State, also notes the ability of student athletes to finally make money off their names, images and likenesses as an influence in their decisions.

“I think this draft class is interesting because you have so many big names that can come out, Angel Reese, [Paige] Bueckers,” said Nurse. “But you also have this weird place too where a lot of players who have the ability to come out but can stay, can make money on these NIL deals.

“Coming out of college early isn’t necessarily something that you have to do. You can stay and be a profitable college athlete and make a lot of money before you hit the WNBA.”

From Iowa’s Caitlin Clark to UConn star Paige Bueckers as well as Canada’s Aaliyah Edwards, 2024 could be the beginning of a new, exciting era in the WNBA. Here are six women’s college basketball players to watch for this season.

Caitlin Clark – Iowa

Clark dominated the 2022-23 season from start to finish. Averaging a career-high 27.8 points with 8.6 assists and 7.1 rebounds, she filled her trophy case with individual accolades, winning the AP Player of the Year, John R. Wooden Award, Naismith College Player of the Year, and was a unanimous first team All-American for the second straight year.

She led Iowa to its second consecutive Big Ten championship and rocketed to superstardom at the NCAA tournament. In the Elite Eight, she recorded a triple-double (41 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds) over Louisville, the first player (man or woman) to achieve that feat. In the Final Four against South Carolina, she had 41 points to beat the undefeated reigning national champions. Leading Iowa to its first-ever national championship, Clark had 30 points in the final but the Hawkeyes lost 102-85 to LSU.

Caitlin Clark Iowa

Her dominance has established her as the frontrunner to go first overall next April.

“I think personally I’d take Caitlin Clark,” said Tamika Nurse. “Just what she can do and then how polarizing she is for the game right now, people follow that too right? This is still a business, you still have to market these players and she’s a scorer, she plays with a personality.

“She has an attitude, she has a following. She’s a tough-nosed, Midwest kid and she has different dimensions to her game.”

Paige Bueckers – UConn

Bueckers missed her entire junior season after tearing her ACL that required surgery prior to the start of the 2022-23 season. The year prior, she played only 17 games. With her redshirting this past season, Bueckers has the option to play two more seasons with the Huskies.

The Edina, Minn., product had a dominant rookie season in 2020-21, where she averaged 20 points per game with 5.8 assists and 4.9 rebounds. She won AP Player of the Year, Naismith College Player of the Year, USBWA Women's National Player of the Year and the John R. Wooden Award, the first freshman to receive any of those awards. As a sophomore, she helped UConn to the national championship game but lost 64-49 to South Carolina.

With Bueckers and Clark both separating themselves as the premier point guard prospects, they’ve drawn comparisons to one another.

UConn

“If you look at Paige and Caitlin, Paige is more facilitate first and she’ll start to take over the game when she finds the need to do that where Caitlin is very much like score first and then facilitate if I really need to,” said TSN Basketball analyst and Seattle Storm guard Kia Nurse.

“I think Paige Bueckers if she can stay healthy, she can be a dynamic player in the WNBA,” said Tamika Nurse. “She’s a little undersized so I wonder when you put a big body on her what’ll look like.”

Angel Reese – LSU

In her first season at LSU, Reese exploded for a career year under head coach Kim Mulkey.

After transferring to LSU from Maryland ahead of her junior season, Reese recorded a career-high 23 points per game with 15.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 36 games. She was a unanimous first-team All-American as well as first-team All-SEC and SEC All-Defensive Team.

Reese was one of the main pieces that helped LSU to its first national championship, as she recorded 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the title-clinching win over Iowa, earning Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA tournament. 

While Kia Nurse believes Reese will be a good player at the next level, she has questions of whether the LSU star’s college game will translate in the WNBA.

Angel Reese LSU Tigers

“Honestly, I don’t know how her game is actually going [to] translate totally because the amount of rebounds she gets from her own misses aren’t going to be there in our league because people are going to clean up those rebounds,” said Kia Nurse.

“I think it’ll be interesting to see the development of her jump shot as the season moves forward because she’s going to be playing in the forward position, the four position in our league is the hardest to play in regardless of who you are coming out of college because you’re seeing Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, Elena Delle Donne, Ezi Magbegor.

“I think her physicality is going to be something that she can play well with, her speed, her athleticism will be something that makes her a good pro. And her confidence. The best of the best in our league have this unwavering confidence in themselves the moment that they step in and that’s something she definitely has.”

Cameron Brink – Stanford

Stanford Cameron Brink UConn Aaliyah Edwards

While Cameron Brink can play at both ends of the floor, her defensive ability will be a calling card in the WNBA.

Earning second-team All-American honours, Brink also earned Pac-12 and WBCA Defensive Player of the Year awards in 2023 and was named to the conference All-Defensive Team for the second year in a row.

As a rookie, she helped Stanford win a national championship, with 10 points, six rebounds and three blocks in a 54-53 victory over Arizona. 

“I don’t like to use the term ‘unicorn’ for a lot of people but she would be under that term just in the sense of what she can do,” said Kia Nurse. “From her skill set at her size, her ability to face up, to play in the post, you can see some similarities between kind of the Stewie body type and hers and the Azura Stevens body type as well.

“Coming into our league and playing kind of that three, four position and just her defensive ability to be a true anchor behind and block shots will be pretty big too.”

At 6-foot-4, Brink is a notable presence in the post but also put in a career season offensively as a junior, averaging 15.1 points, 9.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists.

Aaliyah Edwards – UConn

UConn was hit hard by injuries with Bueckers out for the season and star Azzi Fudd only playing 15 games but Edwards, who hails from Kingston, Ont., took full advantage of the opportunity.

After averaging just under 25 minutes as a sophomore, Edwards was tasked with playing 32.5 minutes per game as a junior. She responded with the extra responsibility, exploding for a career year, averaging 16.6 points, nine rebounds and 2.4 assists, all career highs as she started all 37 games she appeared in.

UConn Aaliyah Edwards

“Her jump shot is something that I know she’s worked on in this off-season and it’ll be another thing that comes into play,” said Kia Nurse. “Just being able to shoot a consistent 15-20 footer, doesn’t have to be out to the three-point line yet, but a 15-20 footer consistently to make that defence stop packing the paint and get up and defend her and that’s something I saw towards the end of last season that she shot a little more.

“High motor, offensive rebounds, being able to post up using physicality and her body to her advantage. I think that’s something that will translate really well to her game because, like me at UConn, she gets a lot of charges during games and that changes when you get to the league because they allow so much more physicality.”

Hailey Van Lith - LSU

Hailey Van Lith Louisville

Van Lith was one of the biggest names in the transfer portal in the off-season, with the former Louisville guard deciding to spend her senior season playing for defending champion LSU.

As a junior, the Wenatchee, Wash., native had a career season, averaging 19.7 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists. She turned heads at the tournament, helping the Cardinals reach the Elite Eight. Now, her new challenge will be how she fits into a Tigers squad boasting Reese and fellow transfer Aneesah Morrow.

“Hailey Van Lith will be an interesting selection as well depending on how her season goes at LSU,” said Kia Nurse. “She’s more of a volume scoring point guard. She is going to be considered undersized coming out but as a volume scoring point guard, she could be helpful for some of those teams that are probably going to have some of those earlier picks.”