Sedona Prince goes undrafted in WNBA with her basketball future now murky
Sedona Prince goes undrafted in WNBA with her basketball future now murky
Sedona Prince has gotten a lot of attention for her social media posts, drawing attention to gender equity questions at the NCAA Tournament in 2021, and her status as a lead plaintiff in a landmark antitrust lawsuit standing up for college athletes.
On Monday night, her name wasn’t mentioned as the WNBA rolled through 38 selections in its 29th draft.
The only place her name was mentioned? As a potential draft pick during the draft by analysts.
Prince just finished her seventh and final year of college basketball at TCU, where she helped the Horned Frogs reach the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.
She first hit the spotlight with her viral video back in the NCAA Tournament bubble in 2021.
That pointed out the stark inequities between how the NCAA treated men and women during its basketball tournaments. Her post helped prompt an NCAA-commissioned report reviewing gender equity, which led to the use of the phrase March Madness and the start of paying women’s programs units for participating in the tournament. Prince started playing in 2019 at Oregon before graduating in May 2022 and transferring to TCU for the past two seasons.
In January, Prince was involved in a physical altercation with a woman she used to date, and both women filed police reports alleging they were assaulted. Prince’s lawyer, A. Boone Almanza, acknowledged that campus police responded to a disturbance on Jan. 18 at Prince’s off-campus residence after a call from the player. Almanza said that no charges have been filed.
The 24-year-old Prince denied all of the allegations made against her through her attorney and said that she has never “abused anyone in her life, whether mentally, emotionally or physically.”
Prince also is a lead plaintiff in a landmark antitrust lawsuit that will help get money for college athletes. Prince attended a hearing April 7 where a federal judge in Oakland, California, heard arguments for the landmark House settlement.
The 6-foot-7 center earned honorable mention AP All-America honors. But Prince was not among the 16 prospects invited to attend Monday night’s draft at The Shed.
The question now is does she get invited by a WNBA team for a tryout or is playing overseas her best option. The center from Liberty Hill, Texas, averaged 17.2 points a game this season and started all 58 games played at TCU. She started 86 of 108 games played over five seasons.
___