Women’s college basketball standouts from across the nation are getting an opportunity to showcase their skills, basketball IQ, and natural athleticism in a first-of-its-kind WNBA combine taking place on Friday in Tampa.
Scouts from all 13 WNBA teams will be in attendance, as well as 30 college basketball stars who have declared for the 2025 WNBA Draft, which will take place in New York on April 14th. The list of players partaking in the combine includes projected first-round draft picks like Shyanne Sellers, as well as players who excelled at smaller programs this past season, like Harvard’s Harmoni Turner.
The combine, officially termed the Lilly Women’s College All-Star combine, is being held just a few hours ahead of the Women’s Final Four, which will take place on Friday night, and the Women’s College All-Star Game taking place on Saturday. Many of the players attending the combine will also be competing in the All-Star game.
And while there have been different iterations of WNBA combines in years past, this year’s event is a larger-scale one and includes major sponsors like the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and the dietary supplement company Herbalife Nutrition.
The one-day combine will have several portions: interviews with team personnel, measurement and strength and condition, and on-court basketball drills.
Joe Abunassar, the president of Impact Basketball, a renowned basketball training company, is running the basketball portion of the combine in hopes of allowing women’s players to showcase their skills.
Abunassar is a Las Vegas-based, longtime NBA trainer who’s also worked with several Las Vegas Aces stars in recent years. He has spent his career training players like Kevin Garnett, Chauncey Billups, and Kyle Lowry and has attended every NBA combine since 1998.
Now, he is bringing elements of what he’s seen on the men’s side to the women’s side as he helps lead Friday’s combine.
“This is the largest scale it’s ever been done,” Abunassar told SB Nation.
Intersport, the agency officially hosting the event, invited a number of WNBA prospects based on conversations with team personnel from across the WNBA. As is customary on the men’s side, some players who are already expected to be high selections turned down the offer. Others are playing in Friday’s Final Four games, which feature UCLA, UConn, South Carolina, and Texas.
But, for many, this is a chance to show their skills and potential abilities to thrive in the WNBA.
“They’ll test their shuttle run, vertical jump — all the type of things have been tested forever at on the men’s side,” Abunassar said. “And then there’ll be a basketball component.”
Inside’s Friday WNBA combine
The athletes were flown to Tampa to attend a river cruise on Thursday night, and begin a rigorous day of basketball and drills on Friday.
The combine itself includes several components: measurements, strength and conditioning, interviews to showcase the players’ personalities, and on-court basketball drills. Teams will be led by women’s basketball legends Cheryl Miller and Nancy Lieberman, who are also coaching Saturday’s All-Star game.
Abunussar wanted to ensure that the basketball portion of the day was meaningful for scouts, so he helped design a dynamic program that goes beyond spot shooting and demonstrates players’ abilities to do things like effectively switch on defense and thrive in the pick-and-roll.
“This has been an attempt to make sure that the evaluation process is thorough — because it’s such a quick turnaround,” Abunassar said.
The WNBA combine will help level the playing field
Historically, most of the WNBA scouting process occurred during the NCAA season, but there isn’t the same regional scouting capacity on the women’s side as the men’s side. While a one-day combine won’t fix that entirely, Abunassar hopes it will set the groundwork for future pre-draft scouting.
“This event is putting foundation in place to create a system for the WNBA to have a true, real combine,” he said.
The biggest potential beneficiaries of such an event? Players who spent their collegiate careers at smaller programs didn’t face the same type of national exposure as many of the projected draft picks, Abunassar said.
“There’s an honor to doing it, and it really signifies that you have a chance — or you’re a player that these teams want to see,” he said.
30 women’s college star are competing in the WNBA combine
The list of players attending Friday’s combine includes:
- Izzy Higginbottom, Arkansas
- Harmoni Turner, Harvard
- Sammie Puisis, South Florida
- DeYona Gaston, Auburn
- Aaronette Vonleh, Baylor
- Zaay Green, Alabama
- Jewel Spear, Tennessee
- Jerkalia Jordan, Mississippi State
- Alyssa Ustby, North Carolina
- Allyson Fertig, Wyoming
- Shyanne Sellers, Maryland
- Lucy Olsen, Iowa
- Julia Ayrault, Michigan State
- Diamond Johnson, Norfolk State
- Khadija Faye, Pittsburgh
- Megan McConnell, Duquesne
- Dazia Lawrence, Kentucky
- Madison Scott, Ole Miss
- Destiny Adams, Rutgers
- Makayla Timpson, Florida State
- Esmeralda Morales, Montana State
- Lexi Donarski, North Carolina
- Molly Kaiserm, New Mexico State
- Jordan Hobbs, Michigan
- O’Mariah Gordon, Florida State
- Kelsey Ransom, Georgetown
- Kennedy Todd-Williams, Ole Miss
- Ugonne (Michelle) Oniyah, California