6. Minnesota Lynx select Bella Alarie, 6’5 F, Princeton
This sure seems low. No one has done more for her stock in the OOC portion of the schedule than Bella Alarie. The top questions about Alarie coming into the season were her ability to score against bigger, non-Ivy bigs and her three-point shot, a must for her to max out as the kind of Breanna Stewart/Elena Delle Donne her ceiling calls for. Well, she’s shooting 62.5% from three so far this season, and there’s an ease to the shot that suggests it is a skill that will stick around, while her size makes it an unguardable weapon at the next level. Alarie’s now a top-50 national player in block percentage, she remains an elite passer who seldom turns the ball over, and her two biggest scoring games so far this year came against Penn State and Iowa, a pair of Big Ten teams. Truly, if she wasn’t in the Ivy League, she’d be in the conversation at #2 with Lauren Cox. It says here she might end up as the superior player, especially if she gets a chance to pair with Napheesa Collier and Sylvia Fowles in the Minnesota frontcourt next season.