NCAA National Champion

Charlisse Leger-Walker was already the best and most successful NCAA basketballer that New Zealand has ever produced based entirely on her Washington State career. She led that school to three straight National Tournament appearances after they’d gone 30 years without an invitation, famously wining the 2023 Pac-12 championship in which she was voted the tournament MVP (for context, the All-Tournament team included current WNBA player Cameron Brink and CLW’s future UCLA teammate and sixth overall draft pick Kiki Rice). Leger-Walker put up consistently huge numbers, once scoring 40 points in a game, getting her name mentioned alongside the best in the business. There have been many good, and a few great, kiwi college careers but Charlisse was unique in that she was a genuine star player for the Cougars. She wasn’t just great by New Zealand standards, she was great by any standards.

Then she tore her ACL. This was midway through her fourth season at WSU, spoiling her intention to declare for the WNBA Draft and turn professional a few months later (as well as the unfinished business of getting back to the National Tournament to try and finally win a game there for Washington State, who’d gone 0-3 in those previous appearances). The Dub was always the end goal but a serious knee injury required a rethink. Recovery can take up to a year and it’s usually a lot longer before getting back to full capacity. So using her extra year of eligibility (given to players who were at uni during covidtimes), as well as the recently loosened transfer portal rules, she decided to stay in college but switch to UCLA.

With access to world class medical and rehabilitation facilities, she redshirted that first season in Los Angeles so as to have a full season under her belt before the WNBA came calling. She was with the team and heavily involved off the court (as well as ramping up her training schedule) but patience was the priority, thus a four year career became a six year career. She went 650 days without playing a competitive game of basketball between busting her knee on 28 January 2024 playing for Washington State against UCLA, and starting for UCLA in a season-opening win against San Diego State on 4 November 2025.

The she won a national championship. And she won it in style, starting every game for the Bruins as they went 37-1 across the season, ending on a 31-game win streak that culminated with a 28-point victory over South Carolina in the tournament final. The only team that beat them all season was Texas and they got revenge over them with a close-fought victory in the semi-final. That Texas team averaged 84 points per game through the season and were held to 44 points in the semi. In the final, UCLA faced a South Carolina team that’d averaged 87.6 points per game and held them to 51 points. The Bruins had a team with six seniors in the rotation, all of whom averaged at least 8.4 points per game, all of whom shot at least 45% from the field, but those cliches about championship defence remain undefeated after seeing what UCLA did on the big stage.

They definitely benefited from the transfer portal opening up more player movement between schools, allowing a powerhouse team such as themselves (based in California with great facilities and equally great weather) to stock up on talent. Charlisse Leger-Walker for example. Their six seniors combined for every point they scored across the last two games and only two of them (Kiki Rice & Gabriela Jaquez) were at UCLA for their entire college careers. Lauren Betts swapped from Stanford after her first year, as did Angela Dugalić from Oregon – Dugalić also had a six year college career, like CLW, after tearing her ACL playing for Serbia at the World Cup in 2022... so while she was a transfer, she was there first before Rice or Jaquez arrived. Dugalić was also the one who willingly made way by playing off the bench during this championship season. Leger-Walker joined two years ago though of course only played this last season. Gianna Kneepkens was also a senior transfer, joining for one year after spending four at Utah.

All six of them could have left and gone pro before now. All six of them made sacrifices in some way to accommodate such a stacked line-up where any one of them could go off on any given day. Respect where it’s due because clearly this team built something special that players wanted to be part of... needless to say having CLW as your oldest player is going to be a good thing for team culture. Because nobody’s role shifted more than hers.

As the main option at Washington State, her job was to dominate games and take her team on her back. At UCLA they had such an array of options that CLW was required to evolve into a pass-first type of point guard, managing games and putting others into good positions. It was a shift that she enthusiastically accepted. It was also a shift that, despite shrinking her prominence in the box scores, reflected way more of the role she’d likely be asked to do in the WNBA. She thrived at that like she’d thrived in the other approach. Her scoring hit a career-low but her shooting percentages (45.7% from the field, 35.5% from threes) were personal bests, as were her 5.6 assists per game while her turnovers shrunk at the same time. At Washington State it was about quantity. At UCLA it was about quality. And she did ‘em both tremendously.

Charlisse Leger-Walker during the 2026 NCAA National Tournament

W 96-43 vs California Baptist (R1): 26 MIN | 8 PTS (3/4 FG, 2/3 3PT) | 5 REB | 6 AST | 1 STL
W 87-68 vs Oklahoma State (R2): 27 MIN | 6 PTS (2/5 FG, 1/3 3PT) | 1 REB | 8 AST
W 80-56 vs Minnesota State (R3): 30 MIN | 4 PTS (2/7 FG, 0/3 3PT) | 1 REB | 8 AST | 2 STL
W 70-58 vs Duke (QF): 31 MIN | 5 PTS (2/3 FG, 0/1 3PT) | 3 REB | 6 AST | 2 STL
W 51-44 vs Texas (SF): 29 MIN | 0 PTS (0/3 FG, 0/2 3PT) | 4 REB | 4 AST | 2 STL
W 79-51 vs South Carolina (F): 26 MIN | 10 PTS (4/12 FG, 2/5 3PT) | 4 REB | 2 AST

New Zealanders Winning College Basketball National Championships

Jack Salt was the first New Zealander to win an NCAA Division 1 championship back with University of Virginia in 2019. Charlisse Leger-Walker became the second. And then would you believe Oscar Goodman added to the tally one day after Charlisse when his Michigan team defeated the University of Connecticut in the Men’s final. They all had different contributions within those championships though: Salt was a rotation bench player and CLW was a starter. Both were seniors when they won their championships. Goodman was a redshirt freshman who only played during garbage time (but what an environment to get started from).

Jack Salt spent his whole four-year career with the Virginia Cavaliers, including as the starting centre in the last three of those years. But when it came to their national tournament run he found his minutes shrink as they leaned away from using a traditional rebounding/defending/non-shooting big man in those games. He started the first one but only got five minutes and dropped to the bench from there. He did get a showcase game in the quarter-finals when he logged 34 mins in an overtime win vs Purdue (5p/8r/2s). On the whole he only played 56 mins across the six games but they absolutely loved him there, treating him as a crucial glue player and a culture-setting senior who happily sacrificed his individual prominence during the nationals and still did a fine job in spot minutes.
Charlisse Leger-Walker, on the other hand, was a starting guard throughout UCLA’s title run. She didn’t need to do a lot of scoring on a team absolutely loaded with talent but she played at least 26 mins in every round, adding up to 169 minutes in total. And as we’ve already discussed, she made her presence known with balance and control. 33 points, 18 rebounds, 32 assists, 7 steals across the six games. She contributed equally heavily off the court and was clearly a favourite of her coach (more on that soon).
Oscar Goodman, unlike those two seniors, was a redshirt freshman at the beginning of his college career. The redshirt thing means he was with the team last year but was ineligible to play, preserving a year of eligibility – often that’s due to injury (such as CLW in 2024-25) though in his case it’s because he joined the team mid-season as soon as he finished high school, giving himself a jump start for this campaign which was always intended to be year one for him. As such, he barely played at all. A bit of garbage time here and there, including a DNP in the final. 11 minutes combined. No sweat, he only turned 19yo in February. He’s learning at the highest level playing behind national champions – with up to three of them expected to be first round draft picks. Goes to show that not only are there big numbers of college recruits coming out of Aotearoa but they’re also being recruited by the very best schools. For Oscar Goodman, this was simply another glorious achievement in the very young career of a bloke who has already finished fourth at both the U17 and U19 FIBA World Cups, been named to the All Star Five in that U17s tournament, won MVP of the FIBA U16 Asia Cup, debuted for the Tall Blacks at 17 years of age, and participated in the NBA Global Academy.

WNBA Draft Selection

The WNBA didn’t actually invite Charlisse Leger-Walker to the Draft on Tuesday NZT. They had a list of 15 players who got official invites, expected first round picks who they wanted to make sure were in attendance, and she wasn’t one of them. That’s despite five of those 15 players being UCLA teammates of hers: Betts Dugalić, Rice, Jaquez, and Kneepkens.

For CLW to be the only senior left off the list was rather rude... but it didn’t matter. She still travelled to New York with the rest of them, as did UCLA coach Cori Close and almost all of her staff (except for the bloke who handles their transfers who was busy replenishing the roster for next season) as together they took the time to celebrate not only the national title but the imminent professional rewards for those players and the history that their basketball programme was about to set. And once again we have to offer a bit of aroha the way of Angela Dugalić because she was the one who kept two seats free at her table so that Chalisse Leger-Walker and her mum Leanne Walker could share the occasion up front (she had other family in the building, they just had to sit further back). That’s awesome from Dugalić, what a legend.

Charlisse Leger-Walker: “I just wanna give a massive shout out to Angela. She gave up a couple of seats for me to sit at her table and experience that with my mother so I could not be more thankful to her and the friendship we’ve had... There was never a doubt in my mind when the invite list came out that I was going to be here for my teammates. One way or another I wanted to show up for them because that’s what we’ve been doing for each other all year. I think it’s such a cherry on top when we can be in this moment together. We had a lot of our other teammates out here celebrating with us tonight as well and there was never a doubt that I was gonna be here supporting them. And, you know, hoping to hear my name called as well. For my family to be here, that was probably for me the hardest thing, just navigating if I could get them tickets and where they were gonna sit and all that. And, like I said, Angela, almost immediately after she got the call, was like: if you want, you have a seat at my table. Super grateful for my teammates and it speaks to what this while season has been for me and our team. So selfless, such a sisterhood. Could not be more grateful that I got to spend my last season playing with UCLA.”

All five of Leger-Walker’s teammates were picked ahead of her, in keeping with the invitational hierarchy. Eight days after their NCAA title, they had a record five first round picks including three in a row as Lauren Betts went fourth to Washington, Gabriela Jaquez went fifth to Chicago, and Kiki Rice went sixth to expansion team Toronto (the WNBA is expanding rapidly with Golden State Valkyries added last season, Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire added for this upcoming season, and entries from Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia on the way before the end of the decade). Angela Dugalić then went ninth where she was re-teamed with Betts in Washington. And for the last pick of the first round, Connecticut Sun took Gianna Kneepkens with #15 overall.

So the invite list turned out to be pretty accurate after all with CLW dipping outside the first round. But it doesn’t really matter where you get picked, as long as you do get picked. Dropping lower for a better fit is always a preferable outcome (as long as the egos are set aside – no issue with that here). Leger-Walker’s situation was best summed up by her coach a few days prior when she tipped her as “the steal of the draft”...

Cori Close on CLW: “I think Char is predicted to go anywhere between 13 and 17, probably, which is late first round to early second but she might be one of the most pro-ready players on our team — basketball IQ-wise, how she processes, how she connects the team, what she understands. Like, her ability to take what I’m asking for and then translate it to the team in a way that really brings them together, she’s one of the top-five locker room players I’ve ever coached, so whatever WNBA team gets her, they’re very, very smart. I think she’s going to be the steal of the draft.”

Naturally her coach is going to bat for her... but what she said was fascinating because a lot of the critique of CLW in the mock drafts was that she’s not a player who is going to evolve much further. She’s not someone with gallons of untapped potential left, she’s already the player that she is going to become... and they said that like it was a bad thing as opposed to it making her “one of the most pro-ready players” in the whole class.

Well, at least the Connecticut Sun knew what’s up...

Charlisse Leger-Walker✨

Our 18th overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft. pic.twitter.com/Wilip5s9GC
— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) April 15, 2026

And there we had it. Pick #18 overall, early second round, and Charlisse is heading for Connecticut... where like Betts & Dugalić she’ll also be reunited with a UCLA teammate in Gianna Kneepkens. This makes CLW the first kiwi-born player to be drafted and she’s now on the brink of joining Megan Compain as New Zealanders to have played in the WNBA. Compain was signed as an undrafted free agent back in the inaugural season of the league in 1997. She played five games for the Utah Starzz and that feat has stood alone for nearly thirty years. Coincidentally, Compain played alongside Leanne Walker at the Olympic Games in 2000 and 2004.

However it gets a little more complicated if you try to say that she’s the first New Zealander to be drafted into the WNBA. Because there was the precedent of Tahlia Tupaea, drafted by the Minnesota Lynx back in 2017 (a third round pick, 36th overall – the final pick in that year’s draft). She was selected as an international prospect having been playing for the Sydney Uni Flames in the Aussie WNBL since she was 15 years old. At the time she was heavily involved in the Australian youth international programmes and it wasn’t until a few years later, following a stint in the NZ NBL, that she switched allegiances and turned out for the Tall Ferns – including as a teammate of CLW’s at the 2023 Asia Cup. Tupaea didn’t manage to take it beyond WNBA training camps but she was drafted and she is a Tall Ferns international. Seems silly not to include her on the list.

It’s a bit like Mojave King on the men’s side: drafted while aligned elsewhere, later committed to Aotearoa internationally. The difference being that King was born in Dunedin and never represented Australia (or America) in any capacity. Tuapea was born and raised in Sydney though has strong NZ connections that include her Tainui-Ngāti Tipa whakapapa. She was always eligible for Aotearoa and she never played for Australia at senior level. These things get frisky but ultimately she counts as both Kiwi and Austrlian. She’s a dual-national. So in that light, Charlisse Leger-Walker is not the first New Zealander to be drafted, she’s not even the first Maori basketballer to be drafted. But she is the first NZ-born player to make it, the first to have walked the Aotearoa development path towards the top level.

NZ Players Drafted in NBA/WNBA

Sean Marks (NBA) - 44th overall pick (second round) by New York Knicks
Steven Adams (NBA) - 12th overall pick (first round) by Oklahoma City Thunder
Tahlia Tuapea (WNBA) - 36th overall pick (third round) by Minnesota Lynx
Mojave King (NBA) - 47th overall pick (second round) by Indiana Pacers (pick traded by LA Lakers)
Charlisse Leger-Walker (WNBA) - 18th overall pick (second round) by Connecticut Sun

The Connecticut Sun

First things first, gotta emphasise that it’s the Connecticut Sun, not Suns. There’s only one Sun here, no plural like with the Phoenix NBA team. There’s not going to be a Connecticut with it for much longer though – with the franchise having just been bought out by the Fertitta family who are expected to relocated the team to Houston where they’ll be aligned with the Houston Rockets (also owned by the Fertittas) and rebranded as the Houston Comets. That gives us the very tasty possibility of, if everything goes according to plan, having New Zealand’s two greatest basketball exports, Steven Adams and Charlisse Leger-Walker, both being based in the same city under the same ownership. Just imagine the media potential of those two personalities together.

The Connecticut Sun (kinda sounds like a newspaper) were originally the Orlando Miracle, founded in 1999 as a sister team to the Orlando Magic in the NBA... until they went broke and were bought out by the Mohegan Indian tribe (you can see the Native American influence in the logo). The tribe also owns a large casino complex in the city, called Mohegan Sun (hence the name), which is where the team’s home arena will be located for one last year. Their Sunset Season. There’s also a restaurant there called Michael Jordan’s Steak House.

The Sun have never won a championship but they do have two conference titles and have made the playoffs in 15/21 seasons since moving to Connecticut. Their most recent finals appearance was in 2022 but they lost an eight-year playoff streak in 2025 when they slumped to an 11-33 record after trades/free agency cost them their entire 2024 starting line-up and forced them into a rebuild (something that’s never happened before in known WNBA or NBA history – 88% of their previous season’s points departed the team in one offseason!). They didn’t even get a top draft pick out of it as they’d already traded their first rounder to Chicago (that pick was used on Gabriela Jaquez). Fortunately, other trades meant they ended up with four selections: Nell Angloma (12), Gianna Kneepkens (15), Charlisse Leger-Walker (18), and Serah Williams (33). Williams was then traded to Portland for Taylor Bigby (37).

They also just signed league legend Brittney Griner on a one-year deal, a 10-time All Star, WNBA champion, former #1 overall pick, and also a highly successful EuroLeague player and Olympian. You might also remember her from a pretty horrendous situation where she was detained in Russian prison a few years back. Griner is 35 years old but remains a very solid player (granted, not at the level she once was) and her leadership and example will be massive for such a young team. It might also be relevant that she’s originally from Houston. The Sun been busy beyond that, scooping up a few other free agents and training invites as the attempt to build around last year’s youthful core of Leila Lacan, Saniya Rivers and Aneesah Morrow (all three of whom were drafted within the last two years).

The reason Griner and so many others have done double duty playing in Europe during their offseasons is that the WNBA has tended not to pay its athletes a whole lot. That’s changing now though. CLW happens to be entering the league at the exact moment when a new CBA begins meaning the salary cap has just exploded from US$1.5m to US$7m. The average WNBA salary will move from around US$120k up towards US$585k, with the maximum individual salary of $1.4m - only being about a hundred thou shy of what used to be allotted for the entire roster. It’s also now mandatory to have 12-player rosters whereas some teams used to get by with 11 so that aids the chances of Charlisse holding down a WNBA contract. Two development spots are open as well. There’s never been a better time to join the association.

Connecticut Sun General Manager Morgan Tuck: “Given how critical the point guard position is, we’re thrilled to welcome Charlisse to our team. Her ability to push the pace while also running the offence and leading her teammates is something we truly value. She comes from a winning program, and her skill set, poise, and basketball IQ position her game to translate seamlessly to the professional level.”

We’ve already established that CLW is good to go. She’s pro-ready, her college coach told us so. And that’s beneficial because there’s no time to waste... WNBA training camps begin this weekend and there are preseason games in two weeks with the regular season tipping off on 9 May (Connecticut are away against New York Liberty in game one). It’s a bit hard to get a gauge on the positional stuff but its worth pointing out that Kneepkens and Bigby are both sharp-shooting guards while Angloma is a forward and Griner is a centre. CLW is the only pure point guard that they’ve added this offseason. The existing guards (Lacan and Rivers) are actually younger than Leger-Walker and still relatively inexperienced.

There’s a possibility of some hefty rookie minutes here. She’s still got to earn a contract but this team needs a backup point guard and right now CLW is the obvious candidate. Simply getting to this stage has been a magical achievement but a new journey begins as soon as the last one ends and if Charlisse Leger-Walker brings the goods to training camp (and if Connecticut don’t sign any free agent point guards before the season starts) then let’s just see what happens. Getting drafted is amazing but it’s what happens afterwards that makes the legend.

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