Two weeks before Azzi Fudd and Olivia Miles heard their names called as the first and second picks in the 2026 WNBA Draft, a South Carolina freshman made both of them look decidedly ordinary. The rest of women’s basketball is only beginning to understand what that means.
The Setup That Makes This Story Remarkable
The first two picks in the WNBA Draft were UConn’s Azzi Fudd and TCU’s Olivia Miles. Two weeks ago, South Carolina freshman Agot Makeer shut down both in a five-day span. Read that again slowly, because the full weight of it deserves to land properly. The player selected No. 1 overall and the player selected No. 2 overall — both neutralised, in back-to-back weeks, by a first-year college player who had barely scratched the surface of her potential.
This is not a fluke story. This is a preview of something genuinely special.
Taking Down Olivia Miles: The Elite Eight
South Carolina beat Miles and TCU 78-52 in the Elite Eight, and then Fudd and UConn 62-48 in the Final Four. In both games, Raven Johnson started out as the primary defender on the future top-two picks, but Makeer took over for much of the game — a telling detail about just how quickly the freshman earned the trust of Dawn Staley on the sport’s biggest stage.
Against Miles — a player who averaged 19 points, seven rebounds, and six assists per game during the regular season and was considered by many to be the most complete guard in the country — the gap in performance was stark. Miles managed 18 points, but she shot just 6-20 and committed four turnovers to go with six assists and three rebounds. She certainly didn’t play up to the normal standards that made her the number two pick in the draft.
On the other side of that ledger, Makeer scored 18 points on 8-14 shooting and had four rebounds, three assists, and three steals. The rookie definitely outplayed the veteran. By every measurable standard, the freshman won that individual battle — and then some.
Silencing Azzi Fudd: The Final Four
If the Miles performance could be dismissed as a single outlier, what happened five days later against UConn made it impossible to look away. South Carolina held the previously unbeaten Huskies to just 48 points — their second-lowest tournament point total ever. The defensive stranglehold on Fudd, one of the purest shooters in the history of women’s college basketball, was the centrepiece of that suffocation.
Fudd scored just eight points on 3-15 shooting, including 2-9 from three. She had five assists, but also two turnovers. For a player whose entire identity is built around her ability to find daylight in the tightest of spaces and drain shots with a release that coaches have described as virtually unguardable, those numbers represent a complete defensive shutdown.
Makeer, meanwhile, scored 14 points on 5-9 shooting and made both of her three-point attempts. She also had four rebounds, two assists, a steal, and no turnovers. Again, the rookie definitely outplayed the veteran — this time against the most technically gifted scorer she had faced all season.
The Tournament as a Whole: Sustained Excellence
What elevates this story beyond two impressive individual performances is the consistency Makeer demonstrated across the entire NCAA Tournament. Makeer didn’t outplay Miles or Fudd all season, of course. She didn’t hit her stride until the NCAA Tournament. But she sustained that level of play for three weeks against the toughest competition of the season — and that sustainability is the real revelation.
Her tournament averages tell the full story: 14.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 2.2 steals with only 1.2 turnovers per game. She shot 55.0% overall and 46.2% from three — numbers that would be extraordinary for a seasoned veteran, let alone a freshman experiencing the pressure of March for the first time. She also shut down fellow freshmen Jazzy Davidson and Aaliyah Chavez along the way, two other contenders for the top pick in a future draft. Makeer did not just have a hot week. She dismantled the most talented collection of players she had ever faced, one game at a time, for three straight weeks.
The Terrifying Part: She’s Just Getting Started
Here is where the story transcends this season entirely and becomes something far more exciting. Makeer was just a freshman when she outplayed a fifth-year and sixth-year senior. She’s got three more years to get better. Who knows how good she’ll be as a senior preparing for the 2029 WNBA Draft?
That question should send a genuine shiver through every programme in women’s college basketball. The player who just neutralised the top two picks in the 2026 draft — under the brightest tournament lights in the sport, on back-to-back occasions — is the same player who will be walking into the 2026-27 season with a full summer of development, the confidence of a champion, and three more years of Dawn Staley’s coaching to absorb.
Azzi Fudd and Olivia Miles are remarkable players. Their draft positions are fully deserved. But on two consecutive nights when everything was on the line, a South Carolina freshman made both of them look like the future was already passing them by.
The 2029 WNBA Draft just got a lot more interesting.
