From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

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From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

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From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

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From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

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From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

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From NCAA star to WNBA rookie in 15 days flat

Exactly 15 days ago, Lauren Betts knelt at center court of Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, her face buried in her hands as confetti tumbled from above. The 6-foot-7 senior, a star clad in white, blue and gold, had just captured a national championship.

Exactly 15 days later, as the Washington Mystics gathered for media day at CareFirst Arena on Monday, Betts donned a new red and white uniform, starring in an entirely different role: WNBA rookie.

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Betts, 22, starred in March Madness, helping lead UCLA to its first NCAA tournament title. Eight days later, she was the first of a record six Bruins to be selected in one WNBA draft when the Mystics took her fourth overall.

“I feel like I haven’t really breathed since I left UCLA, so to be here is pretty unbelievable,” Betts said Monday. “[I’m] taking it day by day and just trying to breathe and stay present.”

Betts’s breathless start typifies a tough reality for WNBA rookies. While first-year players in the NBA have months to prepare, the WNBA draft comes almost immediately after the end of college basketball season, and the pro season starts a few weeks later. That means most of the league’s rookies are thrust into new cities, new teams and new schemes basically overnight.

The Mystics began practicing Sunday, marking the start of the team’s second year under Coach Sydney Johnson. Their first game is May 8 against the first-year Toronto Tempo.

“It’s a young group, [but] that shouldn’t throw people off,” Johnson said. “Whoever is on our roster, our commitment is full-out player development for everybody. … We do that with every single person on our roster, regardless of age, experience, position.”

This year, nearly every single person lacks experience. Betts is one of a dozen Mystics rookies on the training camp roster, whose average age of 24.56 years makes them the youngest team in the league. Among the new additions are Angela Dugalic, her teammate at UCLA and the ninth pick. The Mystics also took Mississippi guard Cotie McMahon 11th overall, tying the league record for most first-round picks in one year.

None will feel more pressure to adapt than Betts. After playing for one year at Stanford alongside now-teammate Kiki Iriafen, Betts transferred to UCLA and blossomed into one of the country’s most dominant forces. Following a standout junior season to which she was named the Naismith defensive player of the year, she capped her college career by being named the NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player.

Her dynamism on both ends of the floor made her an intriguing draft selection for Johnson, and she now has the potential to be a key frontcourt piece as the Mystics look to make strides after finishing 16-28 and missing the postseason last year.

“We’re extremely mindful of the load that our rookies have. … Some of that transition is physical, but a lot of it is mental and emotional,” Johnson said. “We’re ramping them up and always talking as a support staff of how we can best serve them to get 44 games and hopefully more out of them.”

For the rookies looking to find their footing, the lead-up to the preseason has been about enjoying the process together. While the many rookies on the preseason squad will soon compete for a limited number of roster spots, the shared experience of taking in a new city has helped as they transition to WNBA life.

For Dugalic, that started with a team dinner at Sequoia, where the team enjoyed a large seafood boil in Washington Harbor.

“There was not a moment where it was silent,” Dugalic said. “We were just talking about each other’s lives, our college experiences, everything that you could possibly talk about, and it was really nice.”

Just two players on the team’s training camp roster, free agent acquisition Michaela Onyenwere and Shakira Austin, have played more than one season in the WNBA. And with 11 rookies at camp, the team’s new faces have leaned on some unlikely ones - including second-year players Iriafen and Sonia Citron - for veteran leadership.

Citron, who averaged 14.9 points, four rebounds and 2.4 assists in a standout rookie season for the Mystics a year ago, sometimes still considers herself a rookie.

“I’m never going to be the loudest in the room, that’s for sure, but for me [leadership] looks like pulling people to the side and explaining our offense that they aren’t used to,” Citron said. “Not keeping to myself, just being more vocal.”

Iriafen, who was named to the WNBA all-rookie team and was an all-star reserve in 2025, has also risen to the challenge of guiding a preseason roster loaded with rookies despite her relative inexperience.

Citron and Iriafen, together with Austin’s veteran presence, will look to build on last season’s 10th-place finish. With a talented incoming rookie class and the return of guard Georgia Amoore, who missed all of last season with an ACL injury, Washington will enter the new season as an intriguing yet largely unproven unit.

“Our team is full of youth. It’s only been one day, and you can tell everyone’s super hungry,” Iriafen said with a smile. “I do know we’re going to give [Johnson] some headaches just being super young, but I’m just really excited to play with this young group.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly said UCLA won its first national title in March. It was the Bruins’ first NCAA tournament title.

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