Olivia Miles decided to skip WNBA draft and stay in college for one more season

Olivia Miles might have been playing this weekend along with WNBA rookie Paige Bueckers at the league’s All-Star Game.

But Miles decided to return to college this year instead of going to the WNBA draft as a projected lottery pick. The former Notre Dame star transferred to TCU to try to improve her game, earn some extra NIL money and continue to grow her brand.

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“I think it was a mixture of me listening to my body and what I needed and also just another year to develop, you know be in a system where it’ll favor me and I’ll have great teammates and a great coach around me,” Miles told The Associated Press. ”I’ll have a lot of fun so I’m just very excited for that.”

Miles missed the 2023-24 season while recovering from an ACL tear she suffered in the regular-season finale the year before to end her sophmore campaign. She became the first men’s or women’s freshman to post a triple-double in the NCAA Tournament in 2022, and was putting the final touches on a season that had made her an Associated Press second-team All-American when she crashed to the baseline after her right knee buckled on a drive at Louisville in 2023.

“I just felt like I had a lot more left in me in the tank,” she said. “Being far, far removed from my injury, mentally, physically, emotionally, was what I was telling myself, so, it was a lot of back and forth.”

Miles said she literally waited until the last minute to decide what she wanted to do, something she’d love to see the WNBA change in the future.

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“I didn’t decide until the very end, as you know, we have 48 hours to make a huge life decision, which is really hard,” Miles said.

One thing she’s happy about when she does enter the WNBA next season is that there will be a new collective bargaining agreement that should include an increase in player salaries. Right now the rookie salary is about $75,000 for top picks. She’ll make a lot more than that in college this year. The low salaries were one factor in Miles’ decision, but she said it wasn’t a major one.

Then when she decided to stay in school, Miles made another big choice to enter the transfer portal and leave Notre Dame.

“I knew it was gonna be a big story. I knew it was gonna (upset) a lot of people,” she said. “I knew it was gonna cause a lot of commotion, but I ultimately was selfish one time with my career. I was talking to a bunch of power schools and then ultimately I really just wanted to go somewhere where I’d be able to showcase my abilities the best that I can.”

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Miles didn’t get into specifics on why she decided to leave Notre Dame, but did say it was hard to tell Irish coach Niele Ivey that she was leaving.

“I was her first recruit so there was always a special kind of connection there, so when you have to have a hard conversation about people you care about, it’s tough, but it had to be done,” Miles said. “I didn’t want her to find out, apart from me, so I had to grow up in that moment we had the conversation and we kept it going.”

Miles said that Ivey reassured her that she’d “always be a part of the family and that she loves me. I’m doing what’s best for me, she’s doing what’s best for her so there’s always respect there from my end.”

She said she liked a lot of what TCU has done the last few years under coach Mark Campbell.

“I won’t be restricted anywhere, I’ll be able to kind of flow and have fun and really showcase before I get to the league,’ she said.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball