By Marissa Essenburg | Sports Writer
There’s no program west of the Mississippi — and few in the nation — that has seen success quite like Baylor women’s basketball.
In the past 20 seasons, Waco has witnessed 13 conference titles, 23 consecutive NCAA Tournament runs, four Final Fours and three national championships from the Baylor women’s basketball team alone. The program has spent 436 weeks ranked in the Top 25 and produced 25 players who’ve gone on to play in the WNBA, the seventh most of any program in the country.
Sophia Young-Malcom. NaLyssa Smith. Brittney Griner. Three stars, three eras, one standard. Add 22 more, and you’ve got two full WNBA rosters worth of players powered by the green and gold.
“This generation gets to grow up dreaming of playing on that stage, and I think [that’s] the way we [at Baylor] play,” head coach Nicki Collen said. “We talk about the game the same way. The way I coach — not every player is going to be good enough to play in the WNBA, but certainly how we teach the game is going to prepare them.”
A former WNBA Coach of the Year, Collen has coached five Bears — including two top-10 draft picks — who’ve stepped onto basketball’s brightest stage since arriving in Waco in 2021: Caitlin Bickle (Connecticut Suns), Queen Egbo (Las Vegas Aces), NaLyssa Smith (Las Vegas Aces), Jordan Lewis (Connecticut Suns) and Aaronette Vonleh (Dallas Wings).
The Baylor pipeline didn’t begin overnight.
Sheila Lambert and Danielle Crockrom were the first to open the door, drafted just four picks apart in 2002 at Nos. 7 and 11, proving Baylor belonged on basketball’s biggest stage.
But it wasn’t until the 2005 season that the program redefined what Baylor women’s basketball could be — the year that raised the first championship banner into the rafters of the Ferrell Center.
Four years after Baylor saw its first women’s basketball players drafted to the big leagues, Young-Malcolm turned belonging into believing. After leading the Bears to a 33-3 national championship run, she became the program’s third-ever WNBA draft pick and a cornerstone for the legacy still unfolding today. Selected No. 4 overall by San Antonio in 2006, she turned her decade-long career into proof that Baylor greatness doesn’t end in Waco — it starts there.
For five straight years (2005-09), Baylor players heard their names called on draft night as the program proved itself among the nation’s most consistent pipelines to the pros. Those seasons built the foundation for what came next: one of the most dominant runs college basketball has ever seen.
40-0. Numbers etched into Baylor history.
The first NCAA team to ever reach such perfection, the 2011-12 Bears didn’t just win; they dominated college basketball. Led by Baylor legends Griner and Odyssey Sims, and built on relentless defense, unmatched chemistry and a generational roster, Baylor completed a flawless 40-0 season, defeating Notre Dame in the national championship game behind a combined 45 points from Griner and Sims to claim its second title and cement its place in college basketball history.
“It’s been a great year for Baylor,” former head coach Kim Mulkey said after the championship game. “It’s just a fun time. I look forward to going back. Let’s enjoy it. This is a memory. This is for Baylor.”
That season wasn’t just about the nets that came down. It was about raising the bar for what greatness in green and gold could mean.
Griner made history once again in 2013, when the Phoenix Mercury made her the first player in Baylor history to be selected No. 1 overall in the WNBA Draft. Teammate Brooklyn Pope was taken two rounds later by the Chicago Sky.
A year later, Griner’s championship point guard followed suit. Sims — a Baylor and Big 12 single-season scoring record holder, All-American and national player of the year finalist — didn’t wait long to hear her name called. The Tulsa Shock selected Sims with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft, making her Baylor’s sixth first-round selection and 10th player drafted overall.
Over the next five seasons (2012-17), the Bears posted a 201-19 record, winning five straight conference championships and producing four WNBA draft picks in Niya Johnson, Alexis Jones, Alexis Prince and Kristy Wallace.
That 201-19 record grew to 238-20 by the 2018-19 season, when the Bears made another historic national championship run.
The hashtag #TogetherToTampa was born, as Baylor once again edged past the Fighting Irish, this time in an 82-81 thriller. Seniors Chloe Jackson and Kalani Brown combined for a legendary 46-point performance, while freshman NaLyssa Smith stepped up with 14 crucial points after Lauren Cox went down with a knee injury in the third quarter.
“Coaches can try every year to have great team chemistry,” Mulkey said. “They can lead them and guide them, but sometimes you just get a group of girls where you sit back and go, ‘They’ve got it.’ And this bunch had it.”
That bunch went on to have seven players hear their names called on draft night. Brown and Jackson were selected with the Nos. 7 and 15 picks in 2019, respectively, followed by Cox (No. 3) and Juicy Landrum (No. 35) in 2020 and DiDi Richards (No. 17) in 2021. The two freshmen from that team, Smith and Queen Egbo, rounded it out in 2022, going No. 2 and No. 10 overall.
That draft marked the second time in program history Baylor had three players selected in the same WNBA Draft, as Smith, Egbo and Jordan Lewis each joined the league in 2022.
After finishing her Baylor career as one of the most decorated Bears in program history, Smith added to her legacy at the next level. A two-time Big 12 Player of the Year, back-to-back Katrina McClain Award winner and seven-time All-American selection, she left Waco as one of the most dominant forwards in women’s college basketball.
Three years into her WNBA career, Smith became the second former Bear to win both a national championship and a WNBA title when the Las Vegas Aces claimed their third championship in four years.
“Being around people that respected what she brought to the table and being able to impact the game, to see her thrive down the stretch to be a huge part of their turnaround, definitely a proud coach moment,” Collen said.
The pipeline is still flowing. Most recently, Vonleh became Baylor’s latest WNBA draft pick, hearing her name called by the Dallas Wings in 2025.
“This generation has grown up with college being kind of a stepping stone to the WNBA,” Collen said. “Super excited for them and to have more future pros on our roster.”
Baylor’s impact on the WNBA is undeniable. With 11 first-round picks and 25 total draft selections, the Bears now rank fourth among all colleges for most active players in the league with seven, including five on this year’s playoff rosters.
Two decades, three championships and 25 WNBA draft picks later, Baylor’s message to the basketball world remains the same. The standard doesn’t stop in Waco — it starts there.
