{"id":602592,"date":"2026-04-14T03:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/602592\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:30:10","slug":"how-ucla-made-history-at-the-2026-wnba-draft-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/602592\/","title":{"rendered":"How UCLA made history at the 2026 WNBA Draft \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for the UCLA<\/a> women’s basketball team.<\/p>\n

Fresh off winning the program’s first ever championship<\/a> in a rout over South Carolina<\/a>, the Bruins were the highlight of the 2026 WNBA<\/a> Draft.<\/p>\n

The Bruins’ 2026 class featured six players: Lauren Betts, Gabriela Jaquez, Kiki Rice, Gianna Kneepkens, Angela Dugalic and Charlisse Leger-Walker.<\/p>\n

All six were drafted, meaning UCLA made history with the most selections for a single school in one WNBA draft. Five of those came in the first round to set another mark.<\/p>\n

Betts, a dominant 6-foot-7 center, went first from the group at No. 4 overall to the Washington Mystics<\/a>. Jaquez, a wing, followed up a breakout championship game by going right after at No. 5, landing with the Chicago Sky<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Then came the back-to-back-to-back pick, as guard Kiki Rice went No. 6 to new expansion team Toronto Tempo. <\/p>\n

Gianna Kneepkens, another versatile wing, rounded out the first round by going No. 15 to the Connecticut Sun<\/a>. Leger-Walker was the sixth and final UCLA pick, landing at No. 18 overall to join Kneepkens in Connecticut (for one season before the franchise relocates to Houston<\/a>).<\/p>\n

UCLA went 37-1 en route to winning the national title, and now its key players get rewarded by dominating the early stages of the draft.<\/p>\n

Three schools previously had five players go in one draft: Tennessee (1999, 2008), Notre Dame (2019) and South Carolina (2023).<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUCLA got big games from Gabriela Jaquez and Lauren Betts to win its first NCAA tournament title.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for the UCLA women’s basketball team. Fresh off winning the program’s first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,525,530,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-602592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}