Why Sedona Prince is the toughest WNBA draft prospect to evaluate

SEDONA PRINCE LEANS down and unwinds the tape around her right ankle after her final game as an NCAA basketball player. TCU has just lost in the Elite Eight to Texas, and the seventh-year senior sits in a chair and reflects on the challenges she's overcome.

Broken leg. Broken finger. Torn elbow ligament. Botched medical care. Three different schools. She applauds her own perseverance.

"Knockdown, knockdown, knockdown," she says. "And I just kept fighting. It's unreal how much strength God has given me and what I've been able to overcome."

She doesn't mention the most immediate threat to her basketball career: At least four women have publicly accused Prince of sexual assault or intimate partner violence over the past several months. Prince unequivocally denied all the allegations in a social-media post in August. Her attorney, A. Boone Almanza, reiterated those denials this week.

"Sedona has not been charged with a crime or found guilty of any wrongdoing," he wrote in a statement to ESPN. "Rather she has been convicted on social media by people who have attempted to use their relationship with Sedona to attract followers and to build their influencer careers and settle grudges. To the extent she has made any mistakes different from other young people in their early dating life it was solely the decision to be on TikTok."

Days before the 2025 WNBA draft, general managers are facing an unprecedented conundrum when it comes to Prince. Never before has a draft prospect come knocking on the WNBA's door with such a complicated set of circumstances.

Consider:

Prince stands 6-foot-7, taller than all but six players in the WNBA. With her long arms and quick feet, she's a deterrent to any opposing player who ventures into the lane.

Prince crashed out in her final college game, scoring four points before fouling out with 6:32 left and her team trailing Texas by 10.

Prince played four years of high-level Division I basketball. She averaged 17.2 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.0 blocks in her final season and was an All-Big 12 center.

Prince turns 25 four days before the 2025 season tips off. She would be the oldest player drafted into the WNBA since 2023, when Okako Adika (New York Liberty) was chosen at age 26.

Prince is an outspoken and impactful advocate for gender equity.

Prince faced backlash from fans -- including a petition for her dismissal from TCU -- after the accusations of sexual assault and intimate partner violence were made public.

Prince has never been charged with a crime.

The clock is ticking on the WNBA GMs who have to figure out how to balance the good with the bad. Gamble on her size? Run from her baggage?

"I am unclear on why this is even a question," one GM said. "Why wouldn't she be drafted?"

Said another: "I'd say the chips are stacked against her."

THE FIRST SIGNS of the talent that tempts WNBA GMs today had already emerged by the time Prince got to high school.

Prince grew up in Liberty Hill, Texas, a town of about 10,000 people near Austin. She excelled at basketball and played with a number of the same players from elementary school through high school. "We spent so much time with each other all those years," one former teammate said. "We practiced every day after school together."

Prince committed to the University of Texas prior to her freshman year at Faith Academy. As a sophomore, she transferred to Liberty Hill High School. That same year, she decommitted from Texas. As a junior, she recommitted to Texas.

Three of her Liberty Hill teammates said they feared retribution and agreed to speak to ESPN on the condition of anonymity. All three said they haven't stayed in touch with Prince, and they remember her as a difficult person.

"It should have been the best time of our lives," a former Liberty Hill player said. "But it was just constantly walking on eggshells and stressful. If it didn't play out her way, somebody was going to get something in retaliation."

Prince has said she was bullied by classmates and teammates everywhere she went.

"I was with these people that I felt like hated me," she said to The Daily Texan in 2018. "They made me feel horrible about myself."

LEAVING HIGH SCHOOL didn't exactly provide a fresh start for Prince. She suffered a horrific injury shortly after graduation that almost prevented a single GM from ever considering her draft value.

In an early-round game in Mexico with the U18 U.S. national team, Prince jumped to block a fast-break layup. Her foot came down awkwardly on an opponent's shoe, and her leg snapped. She broke her tibia and fibula.

Louisville coach Jeff Walz led that USA Basketball team and ran to Prince.

"I remember the scream," Walz said. "The bone wasn't sticking through her leg, but you could see it was broken."

Prince returned to the United States and had surgery at St. David's South Austin Medical Center on Aug. 6, 2018.

She previously spoke to ESPN about the series of events that she said occurred and had her ultimately leave the Longhorns. She said the Texas training staff rushed her back to weight-bearing exercises earlier than was recommended. She said she experienced pain and swelling as she was pushed to do more. She was diagnosed with a hypertrophic nonunion in early 2019, she said, and needed a second surgery to repair the bones that hadn't healed properly. During the surgery, she said it was discovered that she had an infection.

The antibiotics prescribed negatively affected her kidneys, she said. Two weeks after the surgery, she said she felt ill. The basketball team was out of town playing against Baylor, and the medical staff, Prince said, told her to seek care the next morning. Instead, her mom drove her to the hospital, where medical professionals said the toxicity levels in her kidneys were high. She was admitted and stayed in the hospital for a few days to recover.

Prince's family ended up shouldering thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket medical expenses, she said. The experience soured Prince on Texas. She decided to leave.

According to ESPN's 2021 story, the University of Texas cited patient and student privacy laws and declined to comment. The Princes consulted with attorneys about filing a lawsuit but opted not to pursue one.

Karen Aston, who coached Prince at Texas, declined to be interviewed for this story.

"It was a very, very difficult year for me as a young woman, as a young player to be thinking I was a part of a family and to be treated in the way that I was," Prince said before facing Texas in the 2025 Elite Eight. "So I held a lot in my heart and my soul that I didn't know I was carrying around for a long time."

WNBA GMs KNOW that drafting Prince means drawing a crowd. She has 2.5 million followers on TikTok. Her fame largely dates to 2021, when she was playing for Oregon, the second of her three colleges.

Prince was preparing to make her first NCAA tournament appearance after sitting out the previous two seasons. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA was hosting the women's tournament in San Antonio and the men's tournament in Indianapolis. Prince posted a video of her view to TikTok.

"This is our weight room," Prince said, pointing the camera at a small dumbbell tree in a large and mostly empty San Antonio room. "Let me show y'all the men's weight room," she said, showing footage of weight racks as far as the eye could see in an Indianapolis facility.

The video exposed the differences in amenities and opportunities and launched an open discussion about the inequities between men's and women's basketball. The video has been viewed over 12.4 million times on TikTok alone.

After Prince's post, the NCAA commissioned the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink to review gender equity within the NCAA championships.

Kaplan's report documented for the public the litany of ways women's basketball was held back by the very entity that organized the championships.

Without Prince's video, the women's tournament might still not be called March Madness. It might still not have expanded to 68 teams. For the first time this year, conferences received money for advancing in the women's tournament, just as has been the case for the men's tournament for decades.

The popularity of the weight room video launched Prince into a new arena.

"She had a lot on her plate," Oregon coach Kelly Graves told ESPN on March 5. "And so I'm not sure that Oregon basketball was No. 1 all the time on that list after that. She just got pulled in a million directions. That's going to change, I think, everybody."

Prince played in 19 games during her first season in Oregon in 2020-21, including the Ducks' Sweet 16 matchup against future teammate Hailey Van Lith and Louisville.

In her second year, Prince played 30 games and started 18, averaging 9.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.3 blocks.

Prince had begun advocating for better conditions for college athletes even before posting the weight room video. In June 2020, she joined one of the antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA as a named plaintiff. The settlement for those cases grants current and former NCAA Division I athletes (back to 2016) $2.8 billion in damages over 10 years as well as the establishment of a revenue-sharing agreement that allows schools to share up to $20.5 million with their athletes.

Although she was playing well and advocating for change she knew was important, Prince says she was unhappy at Oregon. She graduated in May 2022. In October, she announced that she needed surgery on her dislocated right elbow and that her NCAA career was over. She moved to San Diego planning to prepare for the 2023 WNBA draft. Three weeks before the draft, Mark Campbell, who coached Prince as an assistant at Oregon, accepted the head coaching position at TCU. Prince withdrew from the draft and moved to Fort Worth to play for Campbell at TCU.

"I hadn't played in eight or nine months, hadn't touched a basketball," she told ESPN last month. "I was overweight. I was depressed. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Coming here was this second chance to revive my career, provide my mental health with purpose again and revamp my childhood dreams."

Prince averaged 19.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.9 blocks in her first season at TCU. She broke her finger playing against Baylor in January and was out for two months following surgery. The Horned Frogs, who were so decimated by injuries that they held open tryouts so they could field a team, went 3-10 without her.

When TCU lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 tournament, Prince was prepared to accept the end of her NCAA career. But the NCAA granted her a hardship waiver. In April 2024, she announced that she would return to TCU for one more season.

"It was an immediate knowing in my chest and my soul and every cell of my being," she said in March. "This has been God guiding me along this crazy journey."

OVER THE PAST year, multiple women have made allegations of intimate partner violence or sexual assault, none of which has resulted in charges and all of which Prince has denied.

On Aug. 13, 2024, online content creator Olivia Stabile posted a 10-part video series on TikTok alleging that Prince had pushed her off an ATV and hit her while the couple was on a trip to Tulum, Mexico.

In an interview with ESPN on March 10, Stabile repeated those allegations. According to Stabile, she and Prince went to Mexico last May to celebrate Prince's birthday. One night, they went out on an ATV ride. Prince, she said, drove the ATV off the main road into the unlit wilderness surrounding Tulum. Stabile said she asked Prince multiple times to turn around, and Prince ignored her. Eventually, Prince slammed on the brakes. "And then she turns around and grabs me, and throws me on the gravel," Stabile told ESPN.

The next morning, Stabile said, Prince punched her in the chest and pushed her to the ground.

"I ran out of that hotel room, and I didn't look back," Stabile said. "I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, 'Call police, call the police,' to every worker that I see. I was just losing it."

Stabile said she later returned to her room with security, and Prince was packed to leave. Stabile said she never filed a police report and she flew home the next day.

Almanza, Prince's attorney, denied that the ATV incident occurred as described by Stabile, stating that the couple was in two separate accidents in which both were injured. He also denied that Prince ever abused Stabile physically.

"At no time did Sedona grab Liv and throw her to the ground," Almanza said in his written statement to ESPN.

Text messages provided by Prince's attorney and reviewed by ESPN showed continued romantic interactions between Prince and Stabile for weeks after the trip to Tulum.

Another woman who dated Prince, Rylee LeGlue, described Prince as "manipulative" to ESPN a few weeks before Stabile's interview. LeGlue said she started dating Prince shortly before Prince posted her historic weight room video in March 2021. LeGlue said Prince "would degrade and belittle the absolute life" out of her, and that Prince's verbal attacks turned physical one time.

During an argument, LeGlue said, Prince grabbed her tightly by the wrists and threw her onto the bed. "But other than that, she never hit me or anything," LeGlue said. LeGlue said she never reported the incident to police.

"Before I met her, I was a very happy person," LeGlue said. "I would describe myself as being sunshine in human form. And I feel like after her, I've felt that no matter how happy I am, I can never reach that point. I feel like I'm a very sad, beaten down, pitiful person. And I wish I could go back in time to before she stole all that from me."

"When Sedona was 21 years old, she was in a very public relationship with Rylee. As with all relationships, they occasionally fought verbally but no more than a lot of young people do in new relationships." Almanza said in a written statement. "At no time did Sedona abuse Rylee emotionally or mentally, much less physically."

As Stabile and LeGlue began speaking publicly about their relationships with Prince, another woman Prince dated, Alyssa Jimmie, went public with an allegation from 2019. In an interview with ESPN, Jimmie said she went on a date to paint in a park with Prince that summer.

According to Jimmie, after they left the park, Prince parked her car, a crossover SUV, near Jimmie's residence. Jimmie sat next to Prince up front. Jimmie told ESPN she had decided that she wasn't interested in moving forward romantically with Prince. But when she tried to leave the car after saying goodbye, Prince locked her inside. According to Jimmie, Prince told her, "I didn't take you out for nothing," before pushing Jimmie into the back seat. Then, Jimmie said, Prince forced her fingers into Jimmie's pants and inside of her without Jimmie's consent.

"Aylssa was a consensual partner in every aspect of their date and Sedona did not sexually assault Aylssa," Almanza wrote in a statement, misspelling Alyssa's name.

Jimmie told ESPN she did not file a police report: "I just didn't have a lot of faith in the system that it would be worth all of that for me," Jimmie said. "I was also not as mentally strong as I am now."

As first reported by The Washington Post, a lawsuit was filed against Prince in September 2024 by a Jane Doe in a district court in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuit, which ESPN has reviewed, was withdrawn by the plaintiff a few months later. It alleged that in September 2022, following a date, Prince grabbed Doe and forcibly kissed her, took her hand and inserted it into Prince's pants. "Plaintiff was compelled to penetrate Defendant's vagina," the lawsuit states. Almanza said the accusations in the lawsuit are "demonstrably false." Multiple calls by ESPN to the plaintiff's attorney were not returned.

"If the lawsuit is refiled Sedona will aggressively defend the lawsuit, as the claims are frivolous and nothing more than an attempt to capitalize on Sedona's success and future," Almanza wrote.

IN AUGUST, A PETITION was posted on Change.org seeking Prince's dismissal from the TCU basketball team. More than 200,000 people have signed it.

On Aug. 31, Prince denied the allegations against her in a video posted on TikTok. "I've never abused anybody emotionally, physically, mentally, verbally. That's not me, and that's not what I've done. That's not who I am." Prince also said her family had received death threats.

On Nov. 5, she scored 29 points in the first game of her second season at TCU.

On Jan. 18, Prince and another TCU student, an ex-girlfriend, separately filed reports with police alleging intimate partner violence. In audio interviews obtained by ESPN, Prince and the other woman described a physical altercation to Fort Worth Detective Kyle Harris, each alleging the other was the primary aggressor. After his investigation, Harris wrote, "The only evidence consistent with both accounts is that there was a physical altercation, and both parties sustained minimal injury." He also documented that "both parties were insistent that they did not wish to pursue criminal charges against the other." No charges were filed.

"The university is aware of the allegations involving one of our student-athletes and is looking into the matter," TCU said in a statement in February. "In accordance with federal privacy laws, the university does not comment on student conduct matters."

The school did not suspend Prince.

In a game at Kansas State in February, Prince was booed whenever she touched the ball. Still, she had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

In all, Prince started 37 games, more than she ever had in a single season. She was a unanimous All-Big 12 first-team selection. It was unequivocally her best season on the court.

"Sedona has grown a lot," TCU guard Madison Conner said to ESPN in March. "I've seen her mature a lot on and off the court, just handling her business in the way that she needs to and not caring about what other people have to say. I think that's why she's succeeding so much this year."

But the season ended with that poor performance against Texas just two weeks prior to the WNBA draft.

When Prince walked off the court in Birmingham, Alabama, after fouling out, patrons at an Austin women's sports bar whooped and cheered.

It was a Texas-friendly crowd (it is Austin), so any TCU player fouling out would have garnered some cheers, but this celebration seemed different to the woman who posted a video on X.

"It was an interesting moment to me to see the crowd react all in the same way and turn from support of the Texas team to disdain for her," said Megan, who requested that only her first name be used for this story. "I think it's disappointing that she's been allowed to play."

During the final weeks of her NCAA career, TCU's Campbell repeatedly praised Prince, calling her a "superstar" and complimenting her growth as a player, saying "it's as much as any person I've ever been around in the college game."

In a 4 minute, 40-second phone interview with ESPN on April 3, he abruptly ended the call when he was asked about Prince's coachability and how she arrived at TCU. "I would rather be off the record right now, so I am going to remove myself," he said.

He declined a request for a follow-up interview five days later.

WILL PRINCE BE drafted Monday? ESPN spoke with representatives from seven WNBA franchises, and several expressed confidence that she will go at some point. But when and where? Most mock drafts, including ESPN's, don't project her as a first-round pick. Prince will not attend the draft in New York.

"I mean, how many 6-7 players are there?" one GM said. "How many 6-5-plus players are there that can shoot in the midrange, are 70% free throw shooters? And so you add two more inches, like, she's an outlier."

Prince sometimes plays smaller than her frame. She often avoids contact rather than finishing through it. Prince draws plenty of fouls and makes her free throws, but she is not a top-tier offensive prospect in a physical league that often stretches the floor with bigs who can shoot from deep.

"I think there's a big difference between the players she can, for lack of a better word, just dominate," another GM said. "When you go up against real size and athleticism, she's not able to move as well, she's not able to finish, she's not going to be able to get to her spots. I think that's concerning."

A third GM also noted that Prince was much older and had more experience than most of her NCAA opponents.

"She's like a 24-year-old playing against what, sometimes 18-year-olds?" the GM said. "That's a humongous gap. She's older than some W players. And so it's just hard to tell, 'Are you that good, or are you just dominating people that are, like, literally, four and five years younger than you?'"

Then there are the injuries. A broken leg, a dislocated elbow, a broken finger, bumps and bruises, tweaks and twinges. Prince struggled to stay on the floor all through college; that's partly why she's been in school for seven years.

And then, there are the allegations.

WNBA players have been involved in domestic violence incidents. There was a 2015 incident between Brittney Griner and her then-fiance Glory Johnson. Griner and Johnson were arrested and suspended for seven games. Former Sparks and Aces guard Riquna Williams was suspended 10 games in 2019 after being arrested for burglary with assault or battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill. The charges stemmed from a domestic violence incident. Williams was later indefinitely suspended by the Aces in July 2023 after being arrested for domestic violence. Those charges were dropped, but she did not rejoin the team. She is no longer on a roster.

The WNBA and WNBPA have a domestic violence and intimate partner violence policy that has investigative authority over WNBA players. Additionally, the CBA has a clause stating a contract can be terminated if a player "at any time fails, refuses or neglects to conform her personal conduct to standards of good citizenship, good moral character, and good sportsmanship." But a potential draft pick coming into the WNBA with public allegations is new territory.

"She is one of the top 38 players who have made themselves available for this draft. If the [concern] is because of the allegations, I would ask, 'Has that ever kept a men's player from being eligible to be drafted into a sport?'" a GM said. "There are countless instances of allegations against male athletes, and their ability to be employed is largely unaffected."

"You want to be fair about it and don't want to necessarily hold it against her," another said. "But from an organizational standpoint, you also have to be cautious and do your due diligence."

Quarterback Jameis Winston was accused of sexual assault in 2012 by a fellow Florida State student, and the accusation became public in 2013. He was never charged, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected him first overall in the 2015 NFL draft. The woman later sued Winston in civil court and Winston settled. Running back Joe Mixon was suspended by Oklahoma for the entire 2014 season after punching a woman in a deli. He accepted a plea deal and settled a civil suit. Video of the incident was released two years later, months before the 2017 NFL draft. Mixon was selected 48th overall by the Cincinnati Bengals. Winston and Mixon continue to play in the NFL.

"I can just speak for [my team]," another WNBA GM said when asked about the possibility of drafting Prince. "Like, we wouldn't touch it, but I think that everybody's at a different spot. Everybody has different information. But where we're at with this franchise, right, wrong or indifferent, there's a risk associated and that's not a risk on someone's character that we'd take."

The conundrum isn't a conundrum at all for another GM.

"We have no interest."

BACK IN THE Birmingham locker room, Prince has finally freed her leg of its tape. Still wearing her purple TCU uniform and purple tights, she leans back in her chair and considers a reporter's question about what she would change in her college career.