#98: 8 players to keep an eye on during March Madness

Plus: The WNBA has a CBA, Team USA (baseball) sucks.

I think about this scene often from "The Office." It can be applied in so many ways.

I really wished that I listened to my mom when I was younger about how amazing bed was.

Bed. I love bed.

Earlier this week, I saw someone post on Bluesky about how great MySpace was and what a simpler time it was. We learned coding, picked a song, a profile layout, and the only hard part to navigate was our top 4 or top 8 friends.

It was quite a time to be alive.

What would my top friends list look like at this point? Well, am I creating a profile for my dog and cat or no?

Seriously – am I?

OK, since I don't have an answer there, instead of looking at my top friends, I'm going to look at the top players that I'm watching in the NCAA Tournament.

Does it have anything to do with MySpace?

No.

Did I giggle at making a graphic?

Yes.

Little joys, friends. Little joys.

Anyways, on this week's podcast, I posed a question to my co-host, Melissa. I asked her who was this year's Hailey Van Lith of the NCAA Tournament, meaning the player who would increase their WNBA Draft stock the most with a good performance.

Well, those are the eight players that I have listed here and what they can show in the tournament to bump up their draft value.

Ashlon Jackson, Duke

In my first mock draft for Winsidr, I had Jackson as a first-round pick going to the Atlanta Dream. I loved the fit for Jackson with her high-level three-and-D profile in Karl Smesko's system in Atlanta. Like the rest of Duke, it took Jackson time to get everything clicking this year, and while her shooting fell off, her defense remains elite. She's in the 94th percentile in the nation in defensive wins shares after finishing in the 95th percentile last year. A hot shooting tournament performance will have Jackson back in the first round.

Darianna Littlepage-Buggs, Baylor

Taliah Scott gets the recognition for Baylor, but don't forget about Littlepage-Buggs. She's an efficient scorer who pounds the boards for the Bears. What's more, she's an elite-level defender, making the Big 12 All-Defensive team for the second straight year. Littlepage-Buggs is a late second-rounder right now, falling into the third in some drafts. That was the exact spot that Van Lith was in this time last year.

Charlisse Leger-Walker, UCLA

UCLA could have five first-round picks. That's how loaded it is. Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice, and Gianna Kneepkens are near-locks for the first round, and depending on who you listen to (me, listen to me) Gabriela Jaquez could sneak into the first, too. But Leger-Walker is a glue piece for the Bruins, and she can bring that same value at the next level. It's going to be hard for her to stand out among her teammates, but I promise you that the scouts at the next level aren't just looking at box scores and on-ball film. They're looking for those extra aspects of the game that don't show up. And, well, that's what Leger-Walker brings.

Snudda Collins, Texas Tech

Shoutout to Melissa for this one. She mentioned Collins being a player who could improve her draft stock, and I've started to like that call more and more. She left Coach Yo and Ole Miss for Texas Tech, and she set a career high in scoring this year. Collins could go from being off of the radar to being a late second-round pick with a good tournament showing.

Cotie McMahon, Ole Miss

OK, so this probably isn't fair. Most agree that McMahon is a first-round pick. She showed that she could handle the SEC after transferring from Ohio State. I had her with a first-round grade initially, but ended up moving her down to No. 16. I regret that. McMahon is a top-12 player in the draft class at worst.

Payton Verhulst, Oklahoma

Aaliyah Chavez and Reagan Beers. Reagan Beers and Aaliyah Chavez. They are the talk around the Sooners, but don't forget about Verhulst. She took a backseat to Chavez in the scoring department, but still makes her impact known as a stout defender, someone who can stretch the floor, and as a facilitator. Her shooting fell off during this year, so if she can put together a good performance with her outside shot during the tournament, you'll see more evaluators moving her up their draft boards.

Rori Harmon, Texas

This may be the best comp to Van Lith, honestly. Harmon, like Van Lith, is an NCAA basketball legend. Texas is her team, and she has a spot on the Longhorn's coaching staff whenever she decides that her basketball journey is over. If she's the leader of a No. 1 seed Texas that has its eyes on the prize of another Final Four trip, why isn't she rated higher for the draft? It's her size and her injury history. But Van Lith was moved up to the first round (she shouldn't have been, to be clear) after leading the TCU Horned Frogs to the Elite Eight – her fifth trip to the Elite Eight as a college player. We love storylines. We love national exposure. It just takes one GM to fall in love with what they see. And it's hard not to see it in Harmon.

Marta Suárez, TCU

I don't fully see it with Suárez, to be honest. She disappears in big games, struggles defensively against bigger players on the block, and she's been inconsistent. I want her to prove me wrong, truly. She's an enjoyable player to watch, and with TCU looking to go back to the Elite Eight again behind Suárez, Olivia Miles, and Donovyn Hunter, she has the chance to prove me wrong and prove some GM right.

We have a CBA!

There will be a WNBA season after all, and it won't be interrupted. Hell yeah to that, brother.

Shoutout to Alexa Philippou, Jackie Powell, Annie Costabile, and Doug Feinberg who were covering the meetings between the WNBA and WNBPA every single day at the hotel in New York. They were putting in hours upon hours into the early mornings waiting for the sides to conclude their meetings.

Something that Shams Charania, by the way, didn't do.

But we have a deal. Here are the takeaways:

• The CBA is for seven years with an opt-out after six years
• The salary cap for 2026 will be $7 million and will exceed $10 million by the end of the agreement, per ESPN.
• Revenue share will be 20% across the length of the deal (gross, not net)
• The super-max contract will be $1.4 million per year (up from $249,244)
• The average salary will be $600,000 (up from $120,000)
• The minimum salary will be $300,000 (up from $66,079)
• Training camp will open April 19

Again, shoutout to the ones on the ground and chasing this nonstop for the details and the coverage.

My biggest takeaway was how intentional the WNBPA was with the minimum salary. It's $300,000 this year. Last year, the max a player could year was $249,244. That means all players will earn more than one player could earn last year.

That's a unified front.

Let's get ready for the spring with 80 percent of the league eligible to sign wherever they want at the start of free agency, right after the expansion team drafts on April 6.

Paul Skenes was almost in the Air Force and the USA almost won

"This is like Christmas for Michael."

It's a text that I received on Tuesday when all of the press was coming out around Team USA losing in the WBC. It's because they all shared a similar theme and one that I was complaining to my friends about: Team USA didn't know how to have fun.

Every other team in the WBC was playing with joy, passion, and being themselves. Meanwhile, Team USA kept making references to the troops and being the dominant country because that's what they do.

They had one of the schmucks in there that captured Osama Bin Laden.

It's fucking baseball – not the frontlines of a war.

Cal Raleigh wouldn't shake hands with his own teammates on Seattle for the tournament. Big Dumper or not, that's big loser energy.

So yes, I was thrilled that Team USA lost. MLB and America is obsessed with the "national pastime" of playing the game the "right (ie white) way." So when players played with genuine excitement, it was fantastic to see.

Now, that have to go back to masking up so that they don't offend the old white people who pull the strings of the league. The robot umps aren't the only things robotic about baseball in 2026.

Until next time

Monday will be issue No. 99 of Walking Bucket. That's pretty cool.

I'll see you here. Have fun this weekend.

I love you awesome nerds.