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There was Paige Bueckers. There was Caitlin Clark. And there was Charlisse Leger-Walker.
Bueckers was the more-hyped-than-usual No. 1 high school recruit coming out of the class of 2020 who went on to win National Player of the Year as a freshman. And we all know what then-No. 4 recruit Clark has gone on to do.
Leger-Walker quietly came over from her native New Zealand to Pullman to play for the Washington State Cougars, the team picked to finish last in the Pac-12. She wasn’t ranked in the SportsCenter NEXT 100. Yet, it was Leger-Walker, instead of a number of other phenomenal, highly-ranked recruits, who shared the spotlight with the other two during the 2020-21 NCAA season.
She quickly became a feel-good story, with 20 points, seven rebounds, three assists, four steals and three blocks at rival Washington on Dec. 11 after the COVID-delayed start to the season. Most importantly, the Cougars got the win.
They would win the next one as well, 74-55 over a good Idaho team. Leger-Walker put up 29 points in just her second collegiate game, a season high she would match twice. Then, Washington State truly arrived with a takedown of No. 21 Oregon State in their third game. Leger-Walker tossed in 13.
By mid-February of 2021, I was writing about her as a freshman phenom, just one tier below Bueckers and Clark. By then, her Cougars had wins over No. 7 Arizona (17 points) and No. 5 UCLA (28 points) and near-wins over No. 8 Oregon (20 points) and UCLA (18 points).
Washington State had some low points that year too, suffering three losses to non-tournament teams and finishing the shortened regular season 11-10. And they could never figure out eventual national champion Stanford, getting blown out both times. But they put on a show against some of the other very good teams in the Pac-12, scored a program debut in the Top 25 and made just their second NCAA Tournament appearance. Leger-Walker was at the center of it all, finishing the season third in the Pac-12 with 18.8 points per game and winning Pac-12 Freshman of the Year.
It was compelling enough for me to rank her the third-best sophomore in the nation entering the 2021-22 season. Players No. 5 through 10 on that list—Kamilla Cardoso, Maddy Westbeld, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Aaliyah Edwards and Te-Hina Paopao—are all now in the WNBA.
Leger-Walker has yet to top her freshman year scoring average, but she averaged at least 16 points per game and took Washington State back to the Big Dance in each of the next two seasons before suffering a season-ending ACL tear in January of 2024 and missing all of 2024-25 while redshirting at UCLA.
Ever the prove-the-world-wrong underdog since her spunky freshman season, she achieved a key shining moment as the Pac-12 Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player in 2023 when the No. 7 seed Cougars defeated No. 5 seed UCLA in the championship game after UCLA had shocked No. 1 seed Stanford. The title vaulted WSU up to a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Her exploits in Pullman are the stuff of legend, but the attention paid to her has faded. She is now one of many stars on No. 4 UCLA. Lauren Betts is the headliner, followed by Kiki Rice and then maybe Gianna Kneepkens and Gabriela Jaquez. Leger-Walker, who once carried NCAA Tournament-caliber teams on her back, is the forgotten one, averaging just 9.7 points per game, behind her four aforementioned co-starters, as well as Angela Dugalić off the bench.
The fact that she, as a super senior, is the team’s sixth-leading scorer when she, as a freshman, was the third-leading scorer in an entire Power 5 conference behind only two seniors—and top-six draft picks in the ensuing WNBA Draft in Aari McDonald and Michaela Onyenwere—tells you just how loaded the Bruins are.
Leger-Walker has embraced this new role. She is leading the Bruins with a career-best 6.3 assists per game, demonstrating that she’s got some pretty impressive distributing skills, something she may have picked up from her older sister, Krystal, the point guard who led the Cougars in helpers per contest in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Charlisse has consistently improved in that area, going from 2.9 over her first two seasons to 4.1 as a junior to 5.1 as a senior, and being surrounded by so many scorers in Westwood allows her to show off her passing to WNBA teams.
Another reason it’s an attractive role to embrace is that there’s a lot of winning going on.
Leger-Walker was part of the UCLA program when they went to the Final Four last season, but she’s never been on the court for an NCAA Tournament victory, despite three bids as a single-digit seed. Now she’s on a legit national championship contender, and the Bruins are cruising along, with comfortable wins already coming over No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 12 UNC and No. 18 Tennessee. Could her college career, which had a storybook beginning, end with a ring?
However it ends, the next chapter may take place in the WNBA, as many are talking about Leger-Walker as a potential second-round pick. It’s tough to stay in the league very long as second rounder, but former Swish Appeal editor-in-chief and now-writer at The Athletic Sabreena Merchant is betting on the Leger-Walker magic a bit more, projecting her to go in the first round at No. 9.
Betts, Rice, Kneepkens and Jaquez are deservedly getting their flowers. They are extremely talented and make UCLA fun to watch. But so is and so does Leger-Walker. Don’t be surprised if the latter ends up being the key X factor that separates the Bruins and brings them success against the toughest opponents in the later rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
She knows what it’s like to be unheralded. She didn’t come out of nowhere, having been named to the International School Sport Federation (ISF) World All-Star Five and becoming the youngest-ever member of the New Zealand Senior National Team prior to attending college. But to an American audience, especially one that was so caught up in the Bueckers (and eventually Clark) hype, she appeared to come out of nowhere, and it only fueled her.
She’s back in the position of being overlooked. UCLA opponents beware.
