{"id":582863,"date":"2026-04-14T03:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582863\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:22:12","slug":"uclas-gianna-kneepkens-gets-taken-15th-overall-by-the-connecticut-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582863\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA’s Gianna Kneepkens gets taken 15th overall by the Connecticut Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UCLA Bruins<\/a> just keep breaking records<\/a>. With the final pick of the first round of the WNBA Draft<\/a>, the Connecticut Sun selected UCLA guard Gianna Kneepkens. Kneepkens was the fifth Bruin selected in the first round, setting a new record for first round picks for one team.<\/p>\n

It was even a bit of a surprise that Kneepkens had to wait as long as she did to hear her name called on Monday. Kneepkens went eighth overall to the Golden State Valkyries in ESPN\u2019s WNBA mock draft<\/a> but instead went No. 15 overall to the Sun.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see how Kneepkens contributes at the WNBA level, it\u2019s with her shooting. Kneepkens is one of the best shooters in the country, shooting 43% from three for her career and 43% in her lone season as a Bruin. The sharpshooter played her first four college seasons with Utah before wrapping up her collegiate experience with a national title for the UCLA Bruins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Kneepkens was a bit quiet during UCLA\u2019s championship run, but her floor-spacing still made a difference for the Bruins<\/a>, even if she wasn\u2019t getting a ton to fall. Kneepkens\u2019 scoring dropped to 12.8 points per game with UCLA after posting 19.3 per game last year with Utah.<\/p>\n

Throughout the season it was obvious that UCLA featured a lot of WNBA talent, but now we see the Bruins make WNBA history, being the first school to ever have five players taken in the first round. Of course the expansion Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire helped that cause, but it stills goes to show how much talent Cori Close accrued in Westwood.<\/p>\n

While the Sun has established talent, they have just one player who averaged double-digit points last year, with guard Leila Lacan at 10.8 points per game, Kneepkens\u2019 offense could prove to be useful right off the bat for the Sun.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Gianna Kneepkens becomes the fifth Bruin drafted in the first round<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UCLA Bruins just keep breaking records. With the final pick of the first round of the WNBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4384,65484,4804,27038,12077,99,107817,85228,17392,434,2940],"class_list":{"0":"post-582863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-connecticut-sun","9":"tag-gianna-kneepkens","10":"tag-golden-state-valkyries","11":"tag-leila-lacan","12":"tag-portland-fire","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tempo","15":"tag-toronto-tempo","16":"tag-ucla-bruins","17":"tag-wnba","18":"tag-wnba-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}