SEDONA PRINCE LEANS down and unwinds the tape round her proper ankle after her ultimate sport as an NCAA basketball participant. TCU has simply misplaced within the Elite 8 to Texas, and the seventh-year senior sits in a chair and displays at the demanding situations she’s conquer.
Damaged leg. Damaged finger. Torn elbow ligament. Botched hospital therapy. 3 other faculties. She applauds her personal perseverance.
“Knockdown, knockdown, knockdown,” she says. “And I simply saved combating. It is unreal how a lot power God has given me and what I have been ready to conquer.”
She does not point out essentially the most speedy danger to her basketball occupation: No less than 4 girls have publicly accused Prince of sexual attack or intimate spouse violence over the last a number of months. Prince unequivocally denied the entire allegations in a social-media submit in August. Her lawyer, A. Boone Almanza, reiterated the ones denials this week.
“Sedona has no longer been charged with against the law or discovered in charge of any wrongdoing,” he wrote in a commentary to ESPN. “Fairly she has been convicted on social media by means of individuals who have tried to make use of their courting with Sedona to draw fans and to construct their influencer careers and settle grudges. To the level she has made any errors other from different younger folks of their early courting lifestyles it was once only the verdict to be on TikTok.”
Days sooner than the 2025 WNBA draft, normal managers are dealing with an unparalleled conundrum relating to Prince. By no means sooner than has a draft prospect come knocking at the WNBA’s door with this sort of difficult set of cases.
Believe:
• Prince stands 6-foot-7, taller than all however six gamers within the WNBA. Along with her lengthy palms and fast ft, she’s a deterrent to any opposing participant who ventures into the lane.
• Prince crashed out in her ultimate school sport, scoring 4 issues sooner than fouling out with 6:32 left and her workforce trailing Texas by means of 10.
• Prince performed 4 years of high-level Department I basketball. She averaged 17.2 issues, 9.4 rebounds and three.0 blocks in her ultimate season and was once an All-Giant 12 heart.
• Prince turns 25 4 days sooner than the 2025 season guidelines off. She will be the oldest participant drafted into the WNBA since 2023, when Okako Adika (New York Liberty) was once selected at age 26.
• Prince is an outspoken and impactful suggest for gender fairness.
• Prince confronted backlash from fanatics — together with a petition for her dismissal from TCU — after the accusations of sexual attack and intimate spouse violence have been made public.
• Prince hasn’t ever been charged with against the law.
The clock is ticking at the WNBA GMs who’ve to determine learn how to steadiness the great with the unhealthy. Gamble on her dimension? Run from her luggage?
“I’m unclear on why that is even a query,” one GM mentioned. “Why would not she be drafted?”
Stated any other: “I might say the chips are stacked towards her.”
Prince starred at Liberty Hill in Texas and was one of the vital sought-after recruits within the nation. AP Photograph/Eric Homosexual
THE FIRST SIGNS of the skill that tempts WNBA GMs these days had already emerged by the point Prince were given to highschool.
Prince grew up in Liberty Hill, Texas, a the town of about 10,000 folks close to Austin. She excelled at basketball and performed with a variety of the similar gamers from basic faculty thru highschool. “We spent such a lot time with each and every different all the ones years,” one former teammate mentioned. “We practiced on a daily basis after faculty in combination.”
Prince dedicated to the College of Texas previous to her freshman 12 months at Religion Academy. As a sophomore, she transferred to Liberty Hill Prime College. That very same 12 months, she decommitted from Texas. As a junior, she recommitted to Texas.
3 of her Liberty Hill teammates mentioned they feared retribution and agreed to talk to ESPN at the situation of anonymity. All 3 mentioned they have not stayed in contact with Prince, they usually have in mind her as a troublesome particular person.
“It must were the most productive time of our lives,” a former Liberty Hill participant mentioned. “But it surely was once simply continuously strolling on eggshells and demanding. If it did not play out her method, anyone was once going to get one thing in retaliation.”
Prince has mentioned she was once bullied by means of classmates and teammates in all places she went.
“I used to be with those folks that I felt like hated me,” she mentioned to The Day-to-day Texan in 2018. “They made me really feel terrible about myself.”
LEAVING HIGH SCHOOL did not precisely supply a recent get started for Prince. She suffered a horrific damage in a while after commencement that just about avoided a unmarried GM from ever taking into account her draft price.
In an early-round sport in Mexico with the U18 U.S. nationwide workforce, Prince jumped to dam a fast-break layup. Her foot got here down awkwardly on an opponent’s shoe, and her leg snapped. She broke her tibia and fibula.
Louisville trainer Jeff Walz led that USA Basketball workforce and ran to Prince.
“I have in mind the scream,” Walz mentioned. “The bone wasn’t sticking thru her leg, however it’s good to see it was once damaged.”
Prince returned to the USA and had surgical treatment at St. David’s South Austin Scientific Heart on Aug. 6, 2018.
She up to now spoke to ESPN in regards to the collection of occasions that she mentioned took place and had her in the end go away the Longhorns. She mentioned the Texas coaching workforce rushed her again to weight-bearing workout routines previous than was once really useful. She mentioned she skilled ache and swelling as she was once driven to do extra. She was once identified with a hypertrophic nonunion in early 2019, she mentioned, and wanted a moment surgical treatment to fix the bones that hadn’t healed correctly. All through the surgical treatment, she mentioned it was once came upon that she had an an infection.
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The antibiotics prescribed negatively affected her kidneys, she mentioned. Two weeks after the surgical treatment, she mentioned she felt unwell. The basketball workforce was once out of the town taking part in towards Baylor, and the scientific workforce, Prince mentioned, instructed her to hunt care the following morning. As a substitute, her mother drove her to the health center, the place scientific pros mentioned the toxicity ranges in her kidneys have been excessive. She was once admitted and stayed within the health center for a couple of days to get well.
Prince’s circle of relatives ended up shouldering hundreds of greenbacks of out-of-pocket scientific bills, she mentioned. The revel in soured Prince on Texas. She determined to go away.
In line with ESPN’s 2021 tale, the College of Texas cited affected person and pupil privateness regulations and declined to remark. The Princes consulted with lawyers about submitting a lawsuit however opted to not pursue one.
Karen Aston, who coached Prince at Texas, declined to be interviewed for this tale.
“It was once an excessively, very tough 12 months for me as a tender girl, as a tender participant to be considering I used to be part of a circle of relatives and to be handled in the best way that I used to be,” Prince mentioned sooner than dealing with Texas within the 2025 Elite 8. “So I held so much in my center and my soul that I did not know I used to be sporting round for a very long time.”
Prince was a champion of gender fairness after she posted a video appearing the diversities between the lads’s and ladies’s weight rooms on the 2021 NCAA tournaments. Chris Pietsch/The Sign up-Guard/USA TODAY
WNBA GMs KNOW that drafting Prince approach drawing a crowd. She has 2.5 million fans on TikTok. Her reputation in large part dates to 2021, when she was once taking part in for Oregon, the second one of her 3 faculties.
Prince was once making ready to make her first NCAA event look after sitting out the former two seasons. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA was once website hosting the ladies’s event in San Antonio and the lads’s event in Indianapolis. Prince posted a video of her view to TikTok.
“That is our weight room,” Prince mentioned, pointing the digicam at a small dumbbell tree in a big and most commonly empty San Antonio room. “Let me display y’the entire males’s weight room,” she mentioned, appearing pictures of weight racks so far as the attention may just see in an Indianapolis facility.
The video uncovered the diversities in facilities and alternatives and introduced an open dialogue in regards to the inequities between males’s and ladies’s basketball. The video has been seen over 12.4 million occasions on TikTok by myself.
After Prince’s submit, the NCAA commissioned the regulation company Kaplan Hecker & Fink to study gender fairness throughout the NCAA championships.
Kaplan’s record documented for the general public the litany of the way girls’s basketball was once held again by means of the very entity that arranged the championships.
With out Prince’s video, the ladies’s event may nonetheless no longer be known as March Insanity. It will nonetheless no longer have expanded to 68 groups. For the primary time this 12 months, meetings won cash for advancing within the girls’s event, simply as has been the case for the lads’s event for many years.
The recognition of the load room video introduced Prince into a brand new area.
“She had so much on her plate,” Oregon trainer Kelly Graves instructed ESPN on March 5. “And so I am not certain that Oregon basketball was once No. 1 always on that listing after that. She simply were given pulled in 1,000,000 instructions. That is going to modify, I feel, everyone.”
Prince spent two seasons at Oregon sooner than resuming her NCAA occupation at TCU. Chris Pietsch/The Sign up-Guard/Imagn
Prince performed in 19 video games right through her first season in Oregon in 2020-21, together with the Geese’ Candy 16 matchup towards long run teammate Hailey Van Lith and Louisville.
In her moment 12 months, Prince performed 30 video games and began 18, averaging 9.3 issues, 4.9 rebounds and 1.3 blocks.
Prince had begun advocating for higher prerequisites for school athletes even sooner than posting the load room video. In June 2020, she joined one of the crucial antitrust proceedings towards the NCAA as a named plaintiff. The agreement for the ones instances grants present and previous NCAA Department I athletes (again to 2016) $2.8 billion in damages over 10 years in addition to the status quo of a revenue-sharing settlement that permits faculties to proportion as much as $20.5 million with their athletes.
Even though she was once taking part in neatly and advocating for trade she knew was once essential, Prince says she was once unsatisfied at Oregon. She graduated in Would possibly 2022. In October, she introduced that she wanted surgical treatment on her dislocated proper elbow and that her NCAA occupation was once over. She moved to San Diego making plans to arrange for the 2023 WNBA draft. 3 weeks sooner than the draft, Mark Campbell, who coached Prince as an assistant at Oregon, authorised the top training place at TCU. Prince withdrew from the draft and moved to Citadel Value to play for Campbell at TCU.
“I hadn’t performed in 8 or 9 months, hadn’t touched a basketball,” she instructed ESPN closing month. “I used to be obese. I used to be depressed. I had no concept what I used to be going to do with my lifestyles. Coming right here was once this moment probability to restore my occupation, supply my psychological well being with goal once more and revamp my youth goals.”
Prince averaged 19.7 issues, 9.7 rebounds and a pair of.9 blocks in her first season at TCU. She broke her finger taking part in towards Baylor in January and was once out for 2 months following surgical treatment. The Horned Frogs, who have been so decimated by means of accidents that they held open tryouts so they may box a workforce, went 3-10 with out her.
When TCU misplaced to Oklahoma within the Giant 12 event, Prince was once ready to simply accept the tip of her NCAA occupation. However the NCAA granted her a hardship waiver. In April 2024, she introduced that she would go back to TCU for another season.
“It was once an instantaneous realizing in my chest and my soul and each mobile of my being,” she mentioned in March. “This has been God guiding me alongside this loopy adventure.”
OVER THE PAST 12 months, a couple of girls have made allegations of intimate spouse violence or sexual attack, none of which has ended in fees and all of which Prince has denied.
On Aug. 13, 2024, on-line content material writer Olivia Stabile posted a 10-part video collection on TikTok alleging that Prince had driven her off an ATV and hit her whilst the couple was once on a go back and forth to Tulum, Mexico.
In an interview with ESPN on March 10, Stabile repeated the ones allegations. In line with Stabile, she and Prince went to Mexico closing Would possibly to have a good time Prince’s birthday. One night time, they went out on an ATV experience. Prince, she mentioned, drove the ATV off the primary street into the unlit desolate tract surrounding Tulum. Stabile mentioned she requested Prince a couple of occasions to show round, and Prince unnoticed her. Sooner or later, Prince slammed at the brakes. “After which she turns round and grabs me, and throws me at the gravel,” Stabile instructed ESPN.
The following morning, Stabile mentioned, Prince punched her within the chest and driven her to the bottom.
“I ran out of that lodge room, and I did not glance again,” Stabile mentioned. “I am screaming on the height of my lungs, ‘Name police, name the police,’ to each employee that I see. I used to be simply dropping it.”
Stabile mentioned she later returned to her room with safety, and Prince was once packed to go away. Stabile mentioned she by no means filed a police record and she or he flew house the next day to come.
Almanza, Prince’s lawyer, denied that the ATV incident took place as described by means of Stabile, pointing out that the couple was once in two separate injuries wherein each have been injured. He additionally denied that Prince ever abused Stabile bodily.
“At no time did Sedona take hold of Liv and throw her to the bottom,” Almanza mentioned in his written commentary to ESPN.
Textual content messages supplied by means of Prince’s lawyer and reviewed by means of ESPN confirmed persisted romantic interactions between Prince and Stabile for weeks after the go back and forth to Tulum.
Some other girl who dated Prince, Rylee LeGlue, described Prince as “manipulative” to ESPN a couple of weeks sooner than Stabile’s interview. LeGlue mentioned she began courting Prince in a while sooner than Prince posted her ancient weight room video in March 2021. LeGlue mentioned Prince “would degrade and belittle absolutely the lifestyles” out of her, and that Prince’s verbal assaults became bodily one time.
All through an issue, LeGlue mentioned, Prince grabbed her tightly by means of the wrists and threw her onto the mattress. “However rather than that, she by no means hit me or the rest,” LeGlue mentioned. LeGlue mentioned she by no means reported the incident to police.
“Prior to I met her, I used to be a more than happy particular person,” LeGlue mentioned. “I’d describe myself as being sunshine in human shape. And I believe like after her, I have felt that regardless of how glad I’m, I will by no means achieve that time. I believe like I am an excessively unhappy, overwhelmed down, pitiful particular person. And I want I may just return in time to sooner than she stole all that from me.”
“When Sedona was once 21 years previous, she was once in an excessively public courting with Rylee. As with any relationships, they now and again fought verbally however not more than numerous younger folks do in new relationships.” Almanza mentioned in a written commentary. “At no time did Sedona abuse Rylee emotionally or mentally, a lot much less bodily.”
As Stabile and LeGlue started talking publicly about their relationships with Prince, any other girl Prince dated, Alyssa Jimmie, went public with an allegation from 2019. In an interview with ESPN, Jimmie mentioned she went on a date to color in a park with Prince that summer time.
In line with Jimmie, once they left the park, Prince parked her automotive, a crossover SUV, close to Jimmie’s place of abode. Jimmie sat subsequent to Prince up entrance. Jimmie instructed ESPN she had determined that she wasn’t occupied with shifting ahead romantically with Prince. But if she attempted to go away the automobile after announcing good-bye, Prince locked her inside of. In line with Jimmie, Prince instructed her, “I did not take you out for not anything,” sooner than pushing Jimmie into the again seat. Then, Jimmie mentioned, Prince pressured her hands into Jimmie’s pants and inside her with out Jimmie’s consent.
“Aylssa was once a consensual spouse in each facet in their date and Sedona didn’t sexually attack Aylssa,” Almanza wrote in a commentary, misspelling Alyssa’s title.
Jimmie instructed ESPN she didn’t record a police record: “I simply did not have numerous religion within the machine that it could be price all of that for me,” Jimmie mentioned. “I used to be additionally no longer as mentally sturdy as I’m now.”
As first reported by means of The Washington Put up, a lawsuit was once filed towards Prince in September 2024 by means of a Jane Doe in a district courtroom in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuit, which ESPN has reviewed, was once withdrawn by means of the plaintiff a couple of months later. It alleged that during September 2022, following a date, Prince grabbed Doe and forcibly kissed her, took her hand and inserted it into Prince’s pants. “Plaintiff was once pressured to penetrate Defendant’s vagina,” the lawsuit states. Almanza mentioned the accusations within the lawsuit are “demonstrably false.” A couple of calls by means of ESPN to the plaintiff’s lawyer weren’t returned.
“If the lawsuit is refiled Sedona will aggressively shield the lawsuit, because the claims are frivolous and not anything greater than an try to capitalize on Sedona’s luck and long run,” Almanza wrote.
Sedona Prince and trainer Mark Campbell went a mixed 55-16 in combination in two seasons at TCU. Carmen Mandato/Getty Photographs
IN AUGUST, A PETITION was once posted on Alternate.org looking for Prince’s dismissal from the TCU basketball workforce. Greater than 200,000 folks have signed it.
On Aug. 31, Prince denied the allegations towards her in a video posted on TikTok. “I have by no means abused anyone emotionally, bodily, mentally, verbally. That is not me, and that is the reason no longer what I have accomplished. That is not who I’m.” Prince additionally mentioned her circle of relatives had won demise threats.
On Nov. 5, she scored 29 issues within the first sport of her moment season at TCU.
On Jan. 18, Prince and any other TCU pupil, an ex-girlfriend, one by one filed reviews with police alleging intimate spouse violence. In audio interviews got by means of ESPN, Prince and the opposite girl described a bodily altercation to Citadel Value Detective Kyle Harris, each and every alleging the opposite was once the principle aggressor. After his investigation, Harris wrote, “The one proof in keeping with each accounts is that there was once a bodily altercation, and each events sustained minimum damage.” He additionally documented that “each events have been insistent that they didn’t need to pursue felony fees towards the opposite.” No fees have been filed.
“The college is acutely aware of the allegations involving certainly one of our student-athletes and is having a look into the topic,” TCU mentioned in a commentary in February. “In keeping with federal privateness regulations, the college does no longer touch upon pupil behavior issues.”
The college didn’t droop Prince.
In a sport at Kansas State in February, Prince was once booed every time she touched the ball. Nonetheless, she had 14 issues and 11 rebounds.
In all, Prince began 37 video games, greater than she ever had in one season. She was once a unanimous All-Giant 12 first-team variety. It was once unequivocally her absolute best season at the courtroom.
“Sedona has grown so much,” TCU guard Madison Conner mentioned to ESPN in March. “I have noticed her mature so much off and on the courtroom, simply dealing with her industry in the best way that she must and no longer being concerned about what people have to mention. I feel that is why she’s succeeding such a lot this 12 months.”
However the season ended with that deficient efficiency towards Texas simply two weeks previous to the WNBA draft.
When Prince walked off the courtroom in Birmingham, Alabama, after fouling out, consumers at an Austin girls’s sports activities bar whooped and cheered.
It was once a Texas-friendly crowd (it’s Austin), so any TCU participant fouling out would have garnered some cheers, however this birthday party appeared other to the girl who posted a video on X.
“It was once an enchanting second to me to look the gang react all in the similar method and switch from improve of the Texas workforce to disdain for her,” mentioned Megan, who asked that most effective her first title be used for this tale. “I feel it is disappointing that she’s been allowed to play.”
All through the general weeks of her NCAA occupation, TCU’s Campbell again and again praised Prince, calling her a “famous person” and complimenting her expansion as a participant, announcing “it is up to somebody I have ever been round within the school sport.”
In a 4 minute, 40-second telephone interview with ESPN on April 3, he impulsively ended the decision when he was once requested about Prince’s coachability and the way she arrived at TCU. “I’d slightly be off the file at this time, so I’m going to take away myself,” he mentioned.
He declined a request for a follow-up interview 5 days later.
Prince, who began her occupation at Texas, performed towards her former workforce for the primary — and most effective — time within the 2025 Elite 8. Sara Diggins/American-Statesman/USA TODAY
WILL PRINCE BE drafted Monday? ESPN spoke with representatives from seven WNBA franchises, and several other expressed self belief that she’s going to cross in the future. But if and the place? Maximum mock drafts, together with ESPN’s, do not challenge her as a first-round select. Prince won’t attend the draft in New York.
“I imply, what number of 6-7 gamers are there?” one GM mentioned. “What number of 6-5-plus gamers are there that may shoot within the midrange, are 70% loose throw shooters? And so that you upload two extra inches, like, she’s an outlier.”
Prince occasionally performs smaller than her body. She incessantly avoids touch slightly than completing thru it. Prince attracts a lot of fouls and makes her loose throws, however she isn’t a top-tier offensive prospect in a bodily league that incessantly stretches the ground with bigs who can shoot from deep.
“I feel there is a giant distinction between the gamers she will, for lack of a higher phrase, simply dominate,” any other GM mentioned. “While you cross up towards actual dimension and athleticism, she’s no longer ready to transport as neatly, she’s no longer ready to complete, she’s no longer going as a way to get to her spots. I feel that is relating to.”
A 3rd GM additionally famous that Prince was once a lot older and had extra revel in than maximum of her NCAA warring parties.
“She’s like a 24-year-old taking part in towards what, occasionally 18-year-olds?” the GM mentioned. “That is a humongous hole. She’s older than some W gamers. And so it is simply onerous to inform, ‘Are you that just right, or are you simply dominating folks which can be, like, actually, 4 and 5 years more youthful than you?'”
Then there are the wounds. A damaged leg, a dislocated elbow, a damaged finger, bumps and bruises, tweaks and twinges. Prince struggled to stick at the flooring throughout school; that is in part why she’s been in class for seven years.
After which, there are the allegations.
WNBA gamers were serious about home violence incidents. There was once a 2015 incident between Brittney Griner and her then-fiancée Glory Johnson. Griner and Johnson have been arrested and suspended for seven video games. Former Sparks and Aces guard Riquna Williams was once suspended 10 video games in 2019 after being arrested for housebreaking with attack or battery and irritated attack with a dangerous weapon with out intent to kill. The fees stemmed from a home violence incident. Williams was once later indefinitely suspended by means of the Aces in July 2023 after being arrested for home violence. The ones fees have been dropped, however she didn’t rejoin the workforce. She is not on a roster.
The WNBA and WNBPA have a home violence and intimate spouse violence coverage that has investigative authority over WNBA gamers. Moreover, the CBA has a clause pointing out a freelance may also be terminated if a participant “at any time fails, refuses or neglects to evolve her non-public behavior to requirements of fine citizenship, just right ethical persona, and just right sportsmanship.” However a possible draft select entering the WNBA with public allegations is new territory.
Prince teamed up with Hailey Van Lith right through the 2024-25 season, and now each are hoping to be a part of the 2025 WNBA draft elegance. Sarah Stier/Getty Photographs
“She is without doubt one of the height 38 gamers who’ve made themselves to be had for this draft. If the [concern] is on account of the allegations, I’d ask, ‘Has that ever saved a males’s participant from being eligible to be drafted right into a recreation?'” a GM mentioned. “There are numerous cases of allegations towards male athletes, and their talent to be hired is in large part unaffected.”
“You wish to have to be honest about it and do not need to essentially hang it towards her,” any other mentioned. “However from an organizational point of view, you additionally need to be wary and do your due diligence.”
Quarterback Jameis Winston was once accused of sexual attack in 2012 by means of a fellow Florida State pupil, and the accusation was public in 2013. He was once by no means charged, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers decided on him first general within the 2015 NFL draft. The lady later sued Winston in civil courtroom and Winston settled. Operating again Joe Mixon was once suspended by means of Oklahoma for all the 2014 season after punching a girl in a deli. He authorised a plea deal and settled a civil swimsuit. Video of the incident was once launched two years later, months sooner than the 2017 NFL draft. Mixon was once decided on forty eighth general by means of the Cincinnati Bengals. Winston and Mixon proceed to play within the NFL.
“I will simply discuss for [my team],” any other WNBA GM mentioned when requested about the opportunity of drafting Prince. “Like, we would not contact it, however I feel that everyone’s at a distinct spot. Everyone has other data. However the place we are at with this franchise, proper, mistaken or detached, there is a chance related and that is the reason no longer a chance on any person’s persona that we might take.”
The conundrum is not a conundrum at concerned with any other GM.
“We don’t have any pastime.”
Prince left school as a significant participant in a lawsuit that reached a $2.8 billion agreement for NCAA Department I athletes. AP Photograph/Noah Berger
BACK IN THE Birmingham locker room, Prince has in the end freed her leg of its tape. Nonetheless dressed in her crimson TCU uniform and crimson tights, she leans again in her chair and considers a reporter’s query about what she would trade in her school occupation.
She displays at the bullying as a child and the hospital therapy she won at Texas. She recollects how the ones issues made her really feel not worthy of improve and a focus. She says she needs she hadn’t believed the individuals who made her really feel that method. She needs she had prioritized therapeutic her accidents and taking higher care of herself.
“The only factor I’d trade is to speak to my more youthful self and be like, ‘You might be beloved, you deserve higher,'” Prince says. “And simply be type to her.”
She glances across the room. She nods and selections up her footwear. She stands up and walks away.
Reporting from ESPN’s Alexa Philippou contributed to this tale.
