Fresno's Aari McDonald Projected To Be Top Prospect In WNBA Draft

Fresno's Aari McDonald is expected to be one of the top picks in this year's Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) draft.

The Fresno native is projected to be taken No. 2 overall in the WNBA draft, according to ABC30.

In 2019, McDonald had the opportunity to go pro but she decided to stay one more year with the Arizona Wildcats at the University of Arizona in Tuscon.

"A lot of them haven't made the tournament," she told ABC30. "I got a taste of that my freshman year at Washington, making the Sweet Sixteen. A lot of them haven't had a chance. I wanted to come back and do something special for the program. They haven't been to the tournament in a decade, maybe two. I wanted to make some noise for this program and leave a legacy. Take my teammates somewhere they've never been."

McDonald is one of the top college basketball players in the nation. She is the reigning defensive Pac-12 player of the year and the winner of the 2020 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award.

Just this month, she became the 24th women's basketball player in Pac-12 history to join the 2,000-point club.

"It's surreal to think it's finally happening in a couple of months, a little girl from Fresno making things happen," McDonald says about going pro. "I think it will be big for the city, too. You don't have a lot of female basketball players going pro, and it speaks volumes, and I'm just really blessed."

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