Twelve players. One program. One coach who has been quietly building the most dominant pipeline in the history of women’s professional basketball — and just broke her own record to prove it.
As the 30th WNBA season tips off on May 8, a total of 12 former South Carolina Gamecocks made opening day rosters across the league. Twelve. That is not just a program record — it shatters the previous one. Last year, nine former Gamecocks made opening day rosters, itself a milestone that broke the prior record of 10 set in 2024. Dawn Staley’s program doesn’t just raise the bar. It keeps moving the bar higher and then clears it again.
To put it in the starkest possible terms: one college program accounts for 12 of the 144 players who made WNBA opening day rosters. That is more than 8% of the entire league — from a single school. No argument about the sport’s greatest pipeline needs to be made anymore. The numbers make it for you.
The Architecture of a Dynasty
The full roster of former Gamecocks in the league reads like a scouting report for the WNBA itself — elite talent at every position, across every tier of production, from franchise cornerstones to developing contributors still growing into their professional potential.
A’ja Wilson | Las Vegas Aces
The foundation of everything. Wilson played at South Carolina from 2014-18 and was Staley’s first No. 1 overall draft selection — a fact that, in retrospect, announced everything that was coming. In October, she became the league’s first-ever four-time MVP and won her third championship with Las Vegas. Last season’s line: 23.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 50.5% from the floor. The WNBA GM preseason survey named her the favorite for a fifth MVP award, the best defender in the league, the best forward, the best center, the best interior defender, and the best leader — simultaneously. She also tied for the player GMs most want taking a game-winning shot. There is no analytical framework adequate to contain what A’ja Wilson is.
Aliyah Boston | Indiana Fever
The No. 1 overall pick in 2023 has quietly become one of the most complete two-way forwards in the league, averaging 15 points and 8.2 rebounds last season on 53.8% shooting. WNBA GMs ranked her third among centers league-wide. Boston anchors an Indiana frontcourt that, paired with Caitlin Clark and new arrival Raven Johnson, gives the Fever one of the most compelling roster constructions in the Eastern Conference.
Kamilla Cardoso | Chicago Sky
Drafted No. 3 overall in 2024, Cardoso’s growth trajectory has been one of the more compelling developmental stories in the young WNBA careers of this era. She averaged 13.6 points and 8.5 rebounds last season on 52.8% shooting — improvement across every significant category — and at 6-foot-7, she represents the kind of interior presence that franchises spend years searching for. The ceiling is not yet visible.
Allisha Gray | Atlanta Dream
The 2025 season was the best of Gray’s professional career by any measure. She averaged 18.4 points and 3.5 assists while earning a spot on the All-WNBA First Team and her third All-Star selection. WNBA GMs voted her third among shooting guards league-wide and gave her MVP consideration — a remarkable acknowledgment for a player who has grown steadily into one of the most dangerous offensive guards in the sport. Gray arrived at South Carolina in 2016 as the No. 4 overall pick in 2017, and a decade later, she is still getting better.
Tyasha Harris | Indiana Fever
The 2020 seventh overall pick is returning from an injury-hampered 2025 season in which she played just five games. Now healthy and back with Indiana, Harris represents the kind of high-IQ, distributing guard presence that Staley’s system produces consistently. Her full return to health gives the Fever even more depth behind one of the most talented backcourts in the league.
Te-Hina Paopao | Atlanta Dream
The Tokelauan-American Samoan guard who has been one of the WNBA’s most compelling cultural figures during AAPI Heritage Month is entering her second professional season. Paopao averaged 5.8 points and 2.0 assists on 44.0% shooting in 2025, establishing herself as a reliable rotation player on an Atlanta team that is rapidly emerging as an Eastern Conference contender.
Laeticia Amihere | Golden State Valkyries
The 6-foot-3 forward averaged 5.4 points and 4.3 rebounds on 45.6% shooting in 2025, serving as a versatile frontcourt piece for Golden State. Now in her third professional season, Amihere continues to carve out a reliable role in the league.
Zia Cooke | Seattle Storm
The 2023 tenth overall pick averaged 3.5 points per game last season while working to establish consistency at the professional level. Still just entering her third year in the league, Cooke has time and room to grow on a Storm roster built for contention.
Sania Feagin | Los Angeles Sparks
In her second professional season, the 2025 twentieth overall pick averaged 1.3 points and 0.7 rebounds while learning the professional game. Alongside South Carolina newcomer Ta’Niya Latson, Feagin gives Los Angeles two former Gamecocks developing together — a dynamic that rarely hurts either player.
The 2026 Rookies: Three Gamecocks Enter the League Simultaneously
One of the most extraordinary elements of this year’s opening day roster count is that three members of the same college program were drafted and made WNBA rosters in the same year — and each arrived under completely different circumstances that make their collective presence even more notable.
Raven Johnson | Indiana Fever (No. 10 overall)
The four-year South Carolina starter who posted 9.9 points and 5.1 assists per game in her final Gamecock season — while anchoring the defense that reached the national championship game — is now a professional. Johnson is already generating fan enthusiasm in Indiana beyond what her draft position typically earns, with her personality and defensive instincts drawing comparisons to the kind of locker room energy championship teams run on. Head coach Stephanie White has described her as having “really naturally gifted skill sets and intangibles” on the defensive end, adding: “She makes plays because of that.”
Madina Okot | Atlanta Dream (No. 13 overall)
The 6-foot-6 center who averaged 12.8 points, 10.6 rebounds, and shot 57.5% from the floor in her lone season at South Carolina arrives in Atlanta with a double-double pedigree and the kind of interior footprint that contending teams must have. She joins Gray and Paopao on a Dream roster that now counts three former Gamecocks — a concentration of South Carolina talent on a single professional team that reflects both the depth of Staley’s pipeline and Atlanta’s front office awareness of what that pipeline produces.
Ta’Niya Latson | Los Angeles Sparks (No. 20 overall)
Perhaps the most analytically compelling story of this entire draft class. The former Florida State leading scorer who transferred to South Carolina and remade her game under Staley — averaging 14.1 points, 3.6 assists, and shooting 48.6% from the floor — was selected in the second round, yet the WNBA’s own general managers voted her the draft’s biggest steal in the preseason survey. Head coach Lynne Roberts has been direct about what the Sparks saw: “We did not anticipate her to be on the board at 20. So we were thrilled with that. It was not a hard decision in the draft room there.”
What This Record Actually Means
Numbers like this don’t emerge from fortune. They emerge from a system so consistently productive that the league itself becomes a downstream destination rather than an aspiration. Dawn Staley has now produced 21 draft picks — 13 of them first-rounders — and has had players on opening day rosters in numbers that keep breaking records year after year.
The previous program record was 10 in 2024. Then nine in 2025. Now 12 in 2026. The trend line does not show a program that peaked — it shows a program that is still ascending, still redefining what’s possible at the intersection of college development and professional preparation.
And with five freshmen arriving in Columbia this fall — including No. 3 national recruit Oliviyah Edwards and No. 6 prospect Jerzy Robinson — alongside the returns of Ashlyn Watkins and Chloe Kitts from ACL injuries, the 2026-27 Gamecocks are being constructed to add to this list in future years.
Twelve former Gamecocks in the WNBA on opening day 2026. The record belongs to South Carolina. The question is only how long before they break it again.
