Gameco*cks' Cardoso taken third in WNBA Draft (2024)

COLUMBIA — She left home at 15, traveling from Brazil to Tennessee on a journey that she hoped would lead to a dream come true. Speaking barely four words of English upon arrival, Kamilla Cardoso instead spoke through basketball.

The goal she had, to play professionally, has been met.

Cardoso was picked with the third overall selection of Monday’s WNBA Draft in Brooklyn by the Chicago Sky, making her a near-lock to make the roster for the season. She will have just under a month of training camp before the regular season begins on May 14.

The first pick was Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark, to the surprise of no one. Clark was drafted by Indiana, where she will be a teammate of USC alum Aliyah Boston, last year’s WNBA Rookie of the Year. Cameron Brink of Stanford went second to Los Angeles.

Because there are only 144 roster spots in the league per season (156 beginning next year, as a team is coming to the San Francisco area), only about 10-12 spots open per year. But being drafted within the first 10 picks makes a player a near-certainty to make the team.

The league’s goal is to have 16 teams by 2028.

Cardoso is the 11th first-round pick and the 15th Dawn Staley-trained South Carolina product to be drafted since 2015, and will join a league that at one point last year, had 10 former Gameco*cks playing in it. USC has had 12 first-round picks among 19 selections in its history.

The 6-foot-7 center is expected to make an immediate impact on each end of the floor.

“Especially how she performed over the last month of the season, she was dominant. A lot of people have been talking about her ability to run the floor as a 6-7 post player and her relentlessness in doing it in every single possession,” analyst Rebecca Lobo said. “And when she demands the basketball, which she did every possession over the course of the last month of the season, she just has to demand extra attention inside and she’s very good at passing out of double-teams. She’s a very good rim protector on the interior. The effort with which she played over the last three or four weeks of the season really opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

From Montes Claros to Chattanooga to Syracuse to Columbia, she’ll now head to Chicago. Her career with the Gameco*cks also took her to Paris and South Dakota and California and Connecticut, culminating this year in back-to-back trips to Albany and Cleveland as the Gameco*cks won their third national championship.

"I had a goal to be here tonight and give my family a better life. I'm just so thankful they were able to be here," Cardoso said, who had her mother and sister at the ceremony.

Cardoso was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four and the Albany 1 Regional and led the Gameco*cks in scoring and rebounding this season, guiding USC to a 38-0 record. Considered a Top-5 pick after claiming awards such as ACC Freshman of the Year (at Syracuse), SEC Sixth Woman of the Year and SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Cardoso showed off all aspects of her skillful game this season.

She skipped draft orientation in New York to take part in USC’s championship parade on Sunday, then flew to Brooklyn. There it was just waiting for her name to be called.

She didn’t have to wait long.