Will NCAA women's basketball's biggest stars stay for another year?

It's a golden era for NCAA women's basketball, with top players like Iowa's Caitlin Clark and LSU's Angel Reese drawing national attention and selling out tournaments with high-powered performances.

But this year's crop of highly talented, highly visible seniors has a unique twist: All of them could choose to come back for another season. With NIL revolutionizing college sports, they just might.

Unlike the NBA, where players have to be 19 years old to declare for the draft — leading to a high number of "one-and-done" players in college — WNBA draftees must be 22 years old. 

For years, there was a sense that the top women's basketball players would do their time in the NCAA, but would go pro the second they had a chance.

Now, things have changed. Since the NCAA adopted a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) policy in 2021 after a Supreme Court ruling, NIL has changed how student-athletes approach college sports.

Women's basketball players like Clark and Reese have lucrative NIL deals that give them extra motivation to stay — especially given the WNBA's ongoing roster problem. 

With teams capped at 12 players, the WNBA only has 144 roster spots each season; most of those are filled by returning players. Of 36 college players drafted into the WNBA last year, only 15 made their team's opening day roster. (The league recently announced an expansion to the Bay Area and plans to expand to other cities in coming years, offering the chance for more spots.)

Now, seniors have the chance to take advantage of an extra year of eligibility, which the NCAA added as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year's batch of seniors were freshmen during the 2020-2021 season, qualifying them for the fifth year of eligibility.

Some have already taken advantage of the additional year. Earlier this month, UConn star guard Paige Bueckers announced her return for next season during her senior night, much to fans' (and Geno Auriemma's) delight. 

Bueckers, who was consensus player of the year 2021 after a monster freshman season, was sidelined for much of her sophomore and junior years with injuries, and will now get a chance to make up for lost time.

On Sunday, Stanford forward Cameron Brink, a projected first-round pick for the WNBA draft, said during her senior night that she was "still undecided" on whether she would declare for the draft. The announcement prompted a round of cheers from the crowd that left Brink looking emotional.

As of now, around half of the projected first-round picks have the COVID year available, meaning that the 2024 WNBA Draft may be very hard to predict until more players announce their intentions. 

Clark, who is projected first overall and is generally expected to declare, has said that she wants to focus on the current season and won't commit until the season ends. 

Neither has Reese, who posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, hinting that she was struggling to make a decision.

The 2024 WNBA Draft takes place on April 15, giving these players a bit of time to make a choice, but not much.

It wasn't that long ago people were lamenting that Bueckers couldn't enter the WNBA after her freshman year. Now, she's extending her stay in college — and don't be surprised if she's not the only one.