Her 105th career start came at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, where WSU held a 16-point lead over then-No. 2 UCLA in the third quarter.
On a routine layup, Leger-Walker suffered a knee injury. The Cougars won the game, 85-82, but sputtered out of the NCAA Tournament picture the rest of the season.
Leger-Walker averaged 13.2 points per game for 21 games her senior year and totaled 137 rebounds, 107 assists and 36 steals.
She earned three All-American awards while at WSU and was an Anne Meyers Drysdale Award finalist. In 2020-21, Leger-Walker was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year.
“My goal was always to finish four years here and really try and help turn this program around,” Leger-Walker told WSU’s student paper, the Daily Evergreen, in a 2024 article.
Leger-Walker chose to transfer to UCLA, the school where her Cougar career ended. She recovered from her injury and sat out the 2024-25 season.
This season, she returned and took a backseat scoring-wise with five WNBA draft picks in front of her, however, she made herself valuable in other ways, dishing out a team-best 213 assists.
She averaged 8.4 points, 5.6 assists and four rebounds per game for UCLA.
“Charlisse is one of the highest-IQ players I’ve ever been around,” said WSU coach Kamie Ethridge, who recruited and mentored Charlisse Leger-Walker and her sister, Krystal Leger-Walker. “She knows her strengths, and she knows those around her strengths. And I just think she’s playing at an unbelievably high level and making other people better on the floor, which is one of her God-given skills that she has.”
UCLA coach Cori Close predicted that Leger-Walker would be the steal of the draft.
Now, the former Bruin and Coug will have the chance to prove her coaches right.
Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2260, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.