NCAAW: Citron’s adaptability makes her a popular WNBA Draft prospect

Ask any women’s basketball fan about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and chances are a conversation about the team’s dynamic backcourt will follow. Guards Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo may just be the most exciting duo in the country, and given how well the Irish have been playing this season, it’s no surprise they’re dominating the highlight reels, too.

The Irish wouldn’t be where they currently are, however—21-2 and No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll—without Sonia Citron, their do-all wing player who seems like she’ll be a surefire first-round pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft.

A product of Eastchester, NY, the 6-foot-1 Citron has been a steady presence for Notre Dame during the Niele Ivey era. Her commitment to Notre Dame coincided with the rebirth of the Irish under Ivey; the Irish have gone a combined 100-24 with her on board and have made three NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen appearances, with Citron playing a major role in each of them. She’s now in a position to become the program’s highest-drafted player since Jackie Young and Arike Ogunbowale went No. 1 and No. 5, respectively, in 2019.

Citron’s game may not be as loud as Young’s or Ogunbowale’s, but anyone familiar with her will tell you that it doesn’t need to be. Her fingerprints are all over Notre Dame’s success, and the variety of ways she contributes will make her a popular target on draft day.

Honors and statistics

A two-time Gatorade Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American in 2021, Citron committed to Notre Dame as the No. 16 overall recruit in the class of 2021, according to ESPN HoopGurlz. She was also already in the USA Basketball pipeline, having won gold medals with Team USA in the 2019 FIBA U16 Women’s AmeriCup and the 2021 FIBA U19 Women’s World Cup.

Citron began her career at Notre Dame on a high note, averaging 11.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game as a freshman, starting 16 of her 33 games and winning ACC Freshman of the Year honors. She then took on a larger role as a sophomore, leading the Irish in scoring in 2023 (14.7 points per game; 47.6 percent shooting from the field) and earning a spot on the All-ACC First Team.

Citron continued to raise her game as a junior, posting career-highs across the board: 17.3 points, 2.7 assists and 1.8 steals per game. She also had her most efficient season from inside the arc, shooting 51.8 percent on 2-pointers. Much of this was after she had returned from a knee injury suffered during non-conference play, and though Citron missed nearly two months of action as a junior, she was still named to the All-ACC Second Team. Citron also earned All-Tournament Team honors for the ACC Tournament, which Notre Dame won for the sixth time in program history.

Citron’s versatility makes her an indispensable player

On a team with perhaps the most exciting backcourt in the nation, it can be easy for the contributions of the rest of Notre Dame’s roster to fall by the wayside, at least for casual fans.

What Citron brings to the Irish, however, is indispensable. She’s Notre Dame’s go-to perimeter defender, and her size makes it difficult on the vast majority of opponents she guards. She’s also a reliable outside shooter, having knocked down 36.6 percent of her 3-point attempts during her time at Notre Dame, and she has a knack for finding her own offense via basket cuts and broken plays, not necessarily needing the ball in her hands in order to be effective.

If that makes Citron sound like an ideal complementary player for a team that relies so heavily on its guards, that’s because she is. It’s no secret that “3-and-D” players are becoming more and more sought after in professional basketball, with coaches looking for talents who best optimizes the abilities of their stars. Citron is a great example of that archetype.

Citron is plenty capable of doing more, though, and we’ve already seen it at the collegiate level. As a junior, she took on more of a shot creating role as Miles recovered from an ACL injury; according to Synergy Sports, nearly 25 percent of Citron’s offensive possessions came as the pick-and-roll ball handler, and her 17.3 points scored per game were by far a career-high.

Fast forward to this season, and Citron has been just as effective as a tertiary playmaker, recording 14.7 percent of her possessions in the pick-and-roll, 20.5 percent in spot-ups and a whopping 31.3 percent in transition. Unsurprisingly, her adaptability has drawn rave reviews from her head coach.

“She is, I would say glue and consistency. She’s the type of player that I know exactly what I’m going to get every day, no matter what,” Ivey said of Citron. “She’s an ultimate team player. She’s so gifted and talented in so many different positions. She does so many things well.”

Highlights: Citron stuff the stat sheet against Georgia Tech

Every team needs a player who can hit outside shots, and every team needs a strong perimeter defender. In Citron, Notre Dame has both, and her overall malleability as an offensive player often raises the Irish’s ceiling as a unit from being dangerous to being nearly unstoppable.

This might be the approach WNBA coaches and general managers take when they evaluate Citron as a prospect. She won’t need to be a star in order to contribute at the next level, and given the number of ways she’s proven to impact the game, there are probably plenty of WNBA teams who would love to select her in the 2025 Draft.

Watch her play

As one of the nation’s premier programs, the Fighting Irish are plenty visible on national TV, and they have several remaining games in their conference schedule that will be aired nationally on ESPN.

On Feb. 17, Notre Dame will host the Duke Blue Devils, who are currently ranked No. 10 in the country by the Associated Press. The Irish will then play the No. 14 NC State Wolfpack on Feb. 23 and the Louisville Cardinals on March 2; Citron and Notre Dame split two games against NC State last season and went 2-1 against Louisville, so these games will be a good measuring stick of just how much they’ve improved since then.

All statistics, team records and rankings for the 2024-25 NCAA season are current through Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025.