Stanford women’s basketball star Cameron Brink is eligible for the 2023 WNBA Draft, but she plans to return for her senior season with the Cardinal, she said Tuesday.

The WNBA requires U.S. players to turn 22 years old in the calendar year of the draft. Brink, who was born on Dec. 31, 2001, makes the cut for the 2023 draft by a single day.

But as she enters her junior season, she is in no rush to leave her college years behind her, she told reporter Alex Simon of the Mercury News.

“It’s fun, college is fun,” she said. “Why not stay?”

The 6-foot-4 forward from Beaverton, Ore., helped Stanford win the NCAA championship as a freshman.

The Cardinal made a repeat run to the Final Four in her sophomore season but fell to UConn. Brink, though, stepped up her game, leading the team with 13.5 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game as a sophomore.

The 2022 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year excelled on that end of the floor, including six blocks in the team’s Elite Eight win over Texas. She ranked sixth in the NCAA with 91 blocks for the season.

The Cardinal will look to her as an anchor again this season — and likely for the next one, too, as she continues to savor her experience at Stanford.

“I think I want to stay just because I want to just continue to be a kid,” she said. “Finish my degree in four years, not rush myself.”

Brink boasts more than 208,000 Instagram followers, a valuable commodity in the new NIL era of college sports. She has posted ads for Netflix, Urban Outfitters and other brands on her account, and the sponsorship opportunities could contribute to her decision to stay put.

Remaining at Stanford for the 2023-24 season would set Brink up to join the already crowded 2024 WNBA draft class, which looks set to include UConn’s Paige Bueckers (who also stated her intent to return for her senior season), Caitlin Clark, Hailey Van Lith, Angel Reese and Diamond Johnson.

Jewell Loyd has set a precedent against the Mystics.

She’s been dominant in each of the Storm’s three regular-season meetings with Washington this year, scoring 22 points in their final matchup on 6-for-8 shooting from the 3-point line.

But in Thursday’s first-round playoff game, Washington seemed to have her figured out.

With Seattle down five points with 4:52 to play, Loyd had yet to make a field goal. The guard had four points, making two free throws in the first quarter and two more in the third, but her usual scoring acumen was absent.

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Loyd matched up against Washington's Natasha Cloud for most of the game Thursday night. (Joshua Huston/NBAE via Getty Images)

Lest people forget Loyd’s experience level, the guard reminded the public and her teammates of it after the Storm’s 86-83 win over the Mystics in Game 1 of the first round

“(I’ve grown),” she said. “I’ve been in the league eight years, so if I haven’t grown that would be a problem.”

As Loyd, 28, finished her sentence, teammate Gabby Williams blurted out, “Oh my god. You’re so old!”

“I’m old, man,” Loyd responded with a smile. “I’m a vet.”

And a vet doesn’t let missed shots keep them down, especially not with the game on the line.

“As a rookie, you get frustrated when you’re not making shots,” she said. “You’re used to things being smooth, but when you’ve been in the league for a while, you understand the flow of the game, you understand who you are, your teammates, time, score, all those things.”

Loyd kept battling on Thursday night. She kept looking for her shot, and with less than five minutes left in a tight contest, she broke through for her first field goal, knocking down a step-back 3-pointer that cut the Mystics’ lead to 77-75.

From there, it was all Loyd. She added 10 more points down the stretch, and until Breanna Stewart hit two free throws with 14.6 seconds left, Loyd had scored all of her team’s points in the last five minutes of play.

Natasha Cloud, who spent most of the game matched up against Loyd, said the guard didn’t change anything about her game. She just stayed the course.

“Just a great player getting hot,” Cloud said. “She made tough shots down the stretch, and we knew they were going to go to her. And that’s just on me. I promise you I’m gonna be better next game.”

Loyd’s heroic run culminated with the go-ahead bucket with 38 seconds left on the clock.

As she dribbled toward the 3-point arc, she refused a screen from Stewart and continued on her line to the basket. Then, with Cloud on her right hip, Loyd took off on one-foot near the free-throw line. She used her athleticism to make a minor adjustment in the air and then fired a jumper.

It gave the Storm a one-point lead and resulted in a Washington timeout. Despite Elena Delle Donne’s 15 second-half points, and 26 overall, the Mystics came up short on their next possession and Seattle closed out the win on two Stewart free throws.

“I just stayed patient,”Lloyd said. “The second half came around and my teammates kept encouraging me, they threw it to me, and I was able to get to my spots.”

Storm coach Noelle Quinn has a unique perspective on Loyd’s game. Before joining the coaching staff in 2019, and eventually taking over as head coach last year, Quinn was Loyd’s teammate in Seattle.

Quinn says there were moments early in Loyd’s career when she started games slow and didn’t end up making the breakthrough. Since the Storm drafted her first overall in 2015, Loyd has won two WNBA championships, made four All-Star teams and earned many individual honors. Against the Mystics on Thursday, she showed that, even when things aren’t going her way in the beginning, her experience will carry her through.

“She pushed through today in a big way, in a major way,” Quinn said. “It wasn’t how she started, but how she finished. Those were big buckets down the stretch.”

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Natasha Cloud was vocal Tuesday night after being left off the WNBA All-Star game roster.

The reserves were announced earlier in the day, and while her Washington Mystics teammate Ariel Atkins received her second straight All-Star selection, Cloud did not make the cut for the game, which is set for July 10 in Chicago.

Still, Cloud showed out Tuesday for the Mystics. She scored a team-leading 18 points on 6-for-7 shooting to help Washington to a 92-74 blowout of Atlanta.

She was particularly potent early, scoring 11 points in the first quarter – matching her season average for points per game – as the Dream double-teamed Elena Delle Donne. But the league-leader in assists (7.3 per game) finished with just three of them – snapping her 23-game streak of five or more assists, the third longest streak in WNBA history.

“I think my emphasis was, I was a little bit pissed off today. I’m an All-Star,” Cloud said on the court postgame, before being interrupted by Shakira Austin and Myisha Hines-Allen yelling, “She’s a shooter!”

“I play both ends of the floor,” Cloud continued. “Teams have to prepare for me every single night. I lead this league in assists. So, if y’all needed to see that I can score – I can score too. I’m the floor general though.”

She later re-emphasized her point in the post game press conference.

“I’m going to show up and I’m going to do my job every single night, regardless [of] if people respect me or not,” she said. “I just think people don’t respect that I impact the full stat sheet. I play both ends of the floor. You’ll have to prepare for me on defense, and you’ll have to prepare for me on offense, regardless of whether I’m scoring or not, because I facilitate our offense.”

Her work in facilitating the offense showed up in a different way Tuesday, which Cloud used to further emphasize her All-Star credentials. It would have been her first selection.

“I thought this was my year, and it’s all politics,” she said. “At some point you have to advocate for yourself, so that’s what I’ve been doing all season long.”

Cloud isn’t the only strong player to be left off the list of All-Stars.

Not a single player from the Indiana Fever was selected, despite Kelsey Mitchell averaging 19.2 points per game – good for fourth in the league – and 4.1 assists. She’s been a lone bright spot for a 5-15 Fever team that is currently last in the league standings. Mitchell, like Cloud, has never been selected for the All-Star game.

Allisha Gray was another big-name snub, with the Olympic gold medalist currently averaging 14.5 points and 5.6 assists per game for Dallas.

Natasha Cloud is adamant about running for politics after her WNBA career ends.

The 30-year-old has been a member of the Washington Mystics since 2015. While she hasn’t announced when she might retire, she said that given the state of the U.S. political landscape, she feels the need to go into politics after her playing days are over.

“We’re out here preparing for Connecticut, and yes, it’s our jobs, we get paid to do this, but how do you even talk about that with what’s going on in our country?” Cloud said.

It’s her second such speech this week after 19 children and two adults were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. It’s the 27th school shooting in the United States since 2022 began and the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.

Cloud has in the past alluded to a political career. In March, she tweeted that she would run for mayor in her hometown of Philadelphia after her WNBA career. She also told NBC Sports Washington that she could see herself running for governor of Pennsylvania.

“It’s frustrating; it really, really is,” Cloud said Thursday. “We could do everything that we can. We can utilize our platforms. We can do marches. We can try to educate people. But, if our representatives don’t do their jobs, if they don’t fulfill their oaths that they took to serve their communities, to not line their pockets, to not worry about their own power, what can we do?”

On top of the shooting in Uvalde, Cloud pointed to the recent supermarket shooting in Buffalo as another reason to run for office.

“It’s at a point now where after my career, I will go into politics because I’m tired of it,” she said. “I’m tired of it being a political game. These are people’s lives. We’re constantly worrying about power, money and all this other s— that doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. We’re talking about lives. We’re talking about 10-, nine-, eight-, seven-, six-, five-year-old kids. We’re talking about elderly folks just trying to go grab groceries in the only grocery store in their community because why? It’s a lower economic community. It’s a Black community. This was a minority school, for the most part.”

The Washington Mystics held a media blackout after their win against the Dream on Tuesday, choosing to focus attention not on the game but on the elementary school shooting in Texas earlier that day in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.

Mystics guard Natasha Cloud represented the team in providing a statement to reporters after the contest.

“We have an issue in this country. Not only white supremacy, we also have a gun violence issue,” she said. “This is us using our platform, right? This game doesn’t matter. … The 18 lives – and the number is going up by the minute – that were lost today from senseless gun violence in Texas at an elementary school, we’re talking about our kids not being safe to go to school and our government is still not implementing sensible gun laws.

“This isn’t about taking people’s rights away from bearing arms. This is about putting sensible gun laws in so this doesn’t happen again. We cannot continue to make the same mistakes. We cannot continue to allow these things to happen in our country and nothing is being done with it for money, for profit.

“So I’m calling on everyone. Please put this out. Post it. Write to your not only local representatives but your federal representatives and tell them you are tired. Tell them that we are tired of lives being lost in this country for senseless [expletive]. It is time to implement gun laws and stop caring about profit and money over people and lives.

“If our government is not going to do our job, then we’ve got to do our job and come together as a community because this is absolutely ridiculous at this point. To the families in Texas, the Mystics are sending our love, our prayers. We prayed for you all today. And we’ll continue to pray for you and we will continue to fight for you. And we’ll fight for everyone in this country.”

During warmups, Cloud wore an orange tie-dyed shirt from the Everytown for Gun Safety organization.

This wasn’t the first time that Cloud and the Mystics have held a media blackout in the wake of gun violence. Following a string of shootings at schools in the D.C. area in 2019, the team held a blackout ahead of a game against Seattle.

“When you’re talking about changing a culture, when you’re talking about ending a cycle, when you’re talking about empowering our youth and giving them opportunities, it starts with their education. And our kids can’t even feel safe to go to school right now. What are we doing? We gotta do better for our youth,” Cloud said in Instagram videos at the time.

The WNBA’s travel woes have carried over into the 2022 season. Many players have blasted the league for refusing to arrange or even allow charter flights.

Washington Mystics guard Natasha Cloud took to Twitter to call attention to the issue after airlines dropped their mask mandates in April.

“On commercial flights, trying to have a Covid free season…while being surrounded by random people not wearing masks,” Cloud wrote.

This week, Cloud missed the Mystics’ Tuesday game against the Las Vegas Aces after entering the league’s health and safety protocols. She took to Twitter to call out the WNBA once again.

“Shoutout to the WNBA for flying us commercial during a pandemic. (And no mask mandates),” she wrote.

She further called out the policy on her Instagram stories, writing that she goes to practice and games but heads straight home afterward and hasn’t been outside “in months.”

“Fly commercial next to random a– people with no mask…COVID,” she said. “At what point do players’ safety come first? I’m doing my part.”

In a later story, she wrote that “how we travel makes it nearly impossible” to avoid COVID.

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(via @t_cloud9)
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(via @t_cloud9)

But health and safety issues aren’t the only concerns that players have raised in regard to the league’s travel policies.

The Aces’ Kelsey Plum said after the team’s 89-76 loss to Washington that the full travel day had left her fatigued.

“I think I’m the best conditioned player in this league, respectfully, and I feel like to play that type of game against Seattle [on Sunday night], then to get on a delayed flight for five and a half hours, fly across the country, wake up and play the next day — I mean, I was tired today,” Plum said. “If you guys have ever watched me play, I can go all day. So I don’t think it’s necessarily conditioning as it’s just the setup of the schedule.

“Let’s be real, I mean, I’m not here to blame a charter flight for the reason that we lost, but normally a team would fly out that night and have that whole day to rest and get your legs back under you and then go play the next day. So you know those little things make a difference. Hopefully we’re on our way.”

An article by The Athletic in 2019 also detailed the many issues that players and coaches have while flying coach.

Earlier this season, Diamond DeShields brought up the issue of some players being too tall to fly coach – even in premium economy seats. She showed in a video on social media just how much leg room she has at her 6-foot-1 height.

Some players choose to spend money out of pocket to upgrade their seats. Liz Cambage told the Los Angeles Times that she spends about $5,000 to $8,000 of her own money each year upgrading to first class.

“I’m not sitting in the exit row,” Cambage said. “If you’re under 6-5, you’re fine. But players like me and Brittney [Griner], that’s gonna come out of our pocket.”

In 2021, the league’s tallest players included Cambage (6-foot-8), Griner (6-foot-9) and Bernadett Hatar (6-foot-10).

The Sparks will be on the road for eight out of their 11 games in May and will have to deal with navigating airports and airplanes while also trying not to catch COVID-19.

“I personally think airports are the dirtiest places in the world,” Cambage said. “And the fact that we’re in [them] every other day, when there are owners out there that want us to fly private? And the league literally doesn’t allow it? It’s crazy to me.”

In March, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the more than $20 million per season cost for the league to charter flights isn’t something she feels the league could handle.

New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai, however, has said that his team had found a way to get charter flights compensated for every team in the league for three years – a claim that the WNBA has refuted. The team was fined $500,000 last season for chartering flights during the second half of the 2021 season and other rules violations.

During last year’s WNBA Finals, the league chartered flights for the Chicago Sky and Phoenix Mercury between Games 2 and 3.

Athletes are reacting to a bombshell report from Politico that says the Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The publication obtained a draft of the majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the 1973 Supreme Court decision, which guarantees constitutional protections of abortion rights.

Washington Mystics star Natasha Cloud expressed her anger regarding the news on Twitter.

“America is NOT pro life. They’re pro birth. We still pay women less than men. Not every woman has access to health care. We don’t focus on fixing and building our education system. Price of housing….disgusting,” Cloud wrote.

Sue Bird also addressed the news Monday night.

Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx called the move “heartbreaking” and a “blow to women’s rights.”

U.S. Olympic swimmer Erica Sullivan, who won silver in the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics, is visiting the White House as part of a celebration of the athletes from the most recent Summer and Winter Games.

“Since I’m meeting the president tomorrow, do I ask why he didn’t pack the court so Roe v. Wade couldn’t get overturned,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter.

Tennis icon and gender-equity activist Billie Jean King spoke out on Tuesday, writing, “It is vital that we do all we can to protect this legislation.”

In September, more than 500 women athletes were included in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court calling on the nine justices to uphold abortion rights. Athletes included Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Lynn Williams, Brittney Griner, Nneka Ogwumike and more.

“Women’s increased participation and success in sports has been propelled to remarkable heights by women’s exercise of, and reliance on, constitutional guarantees of liberty and gender equality, including the right to reproductive autonomy,” the brief stated. “If women were to be deprived of these constitutional guarantees, the consequences for women’s athletics — and for society as whole — would be devastating.”

Should the initial draft opinion be upheld, 22 states that have some form of abortion ban in place will be immediately impacted by the ruling.

Washington Mystics guard Natasha Cloud is serious about running for political office.

After tweeting that she wanted to run for mayor of Philadelphia, Cloud told NBC Sports Washington’s Chris Miller that she plans to get into politics after her playing career is over.

“I tweeted out that I was going to run for the mayor of Philadelphia, but I really do see myself either running for mayor or for the governor of Pennsylvania,” Cloud told NBC Sports Washington. “It’s something I would love to do, I think we’re doing a terrible job.

“I think politics is too messy and I think they need real people in there that actually care about the community and not themselves. Not lining their own pockets, not lining their own things that they need or that they want.”

Cloud long has been vocal about social issues. In 2019, Cloud held a media blackout to protest gun violence in the neighborhood surrounding the Mystics’ arena. She sat out the entire 2020 “Wubble” season in order to focus on social justice.

While not looking to call it quits on the court anytime soon, Cloud knows that she wants to make an impact now and in the future.

“I want to have impact in our community that’s going to change and that’s going to progress our people, people that look like me,” she said. “And I want people to see that you can look like me, you can be like me, you can kind of follow along and you can do whatever you want, even with all the roadblocks set up in place to see us fail.”

Natasha Cloud leads the Athletes Unlimited basketball leaderboard after the first week of competition.

The star guard notched 1,415 points over three games, followed by Lexie Brown with 1,345 points. Isabelle Harrison and Mercedes Russell round out the Week One top four, solidifying their place as Week Two captains.

Cloud and Harrison led Team Carrington to a 3-0 record to open the AU season, each earning additional points in the standings after clinching MVP honors.

In the team’s final matchup against Team Sims, Harrison led her side to an 84-78 victory, recording 19 points. Cloud added to the team’s tally with 12 points and seven assists, earning herself 60 MVP points to move atop the league standings.

Russell returns as a captain after finishing the opening series of games with a 2-1 record, capping off the week with a commanding 79-71 victory over Team Mitchell. The team’s captain led scoring with 20 points, while Lexie Brown added 16 points and nine rebounds for MVP 3 honors.

Week Two captains will select their teams on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, with the draft streamed on YouTube.

Since its inception in 2020, Athletes Unlimited has been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in women’s sports.

First there was softball, which gave many of the best players in the world a platform to compete and elevate their sport. Volleyball and lacrosse seasons followed. But, for a league founded on the principle of growing women’s sports, running three sports seasons in eight months wasn’t enough.

Enter basketball.

“We think we’re filling an important need in the landscape,” Athletes Unlimited Co-Founder Jonathan Soros said during a recent press conference introducing AU Basketball, set to debut in January 2022 as a five-week season featuring 44 players.

“There’s plenty of opportunity to grow the sport of basketball and create more opportunities for the athletes who are well-served by the WNBA but often don’t have enough opportunity.”

When Soros and co-founder Jon Patricof were discussing the idea of making basketball AU’s next sport, they considered a wide range of factors. The sport’s deep talent pool and growing fan base were key, but the most convincing response was the resounding yes they got from players when the prospect of AU Basketball was floated to them.

One of those players was Sydney Colson, a seven-year WNBA veteran and the first person to sign on for the inaugural season.

“Without being too dramatic, it’s almost like I’m the Sheryl Swoopes of AU,” Colson quipped. “They’ve built something that’s super innovative for the fans and the players. I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

In the spirit of providing more opportunities for top women’s basketball talent, Athletes Unlimited also hopes to fill another need by giving players the option to stay home in the offseason.

Roughly two-thirds of the WNBA’s players head overseas when their season comes to an end. The international leagues give them a chance to supplement their WNBA salaries (the league’s minimum salary in 2021 was $58,710 for players with zero to two years of experience) and improve their game before WNBA training camps reopen.

“With going overseas, women are playing year-round,” Washington Mystics guard and AU player Natasha Cloud said. “That’s wear and tear on your body. That’s wear and tear on the longevity of your career as well.”

“It’s going to provide people with one more option,” Colson told Just Women’s Sports. “It’s a good chance to do something different.

“There’s been nothing but positive feedback. I think women’s basketball players understand the need for a league like this and the need for more opportunities in professional women’s basketball.”

There’s also the matter of the WNBA’s new CBA, which is phasing out late reporting to camp. Beginning in 2023, players will be penalized for not joining their teams on time for preseason. With overseas seasons typically running from late fall to early summer, players could run into contractual conflicts with the two leagues.

Athletes Unlimited’s plan for a five-week season running from late January through early February gives players another option without the scheduling challenges.

“I think it’s a perfect match for the W,” Cloud said. “To be able to keep players home, to make sure that they’re getting adequate care and treatment, that they’re still working out and playing at a high level against competition.”

“What AU prides itself on is having top-notch athletes take part in all of its sports,” Colson added. “We don’t plan to be any different.”

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Colson last played for the Chicago Sky in the bubble in 2020. (Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)

The AU season will also give players the opportunity to prove themselves to WNBA coaches. With only 144 roster spots available in the 12-team league, a plethora of talent (and especially young talent) gets left out in the cold. For example, of the 36 players drafted in 2021, only 17 made it on to rosters as active players. Shyla Heal and Stephanie Watts, two first-round draft picks, were waived early in the season, before they had much of a chance to prove themselves.

As calls for WNBA expansion become more urgent, Athletes Unlimited hopes to fill the void right now. AU Basketball will have 44 roster spots for the 2022 season and, as it does with its other sports leagues, will tap the four top players every week to draft new teams, giving players the ability to showcase their individual talents.

“Sometimes people just need an opportunity to show that they’re capable,” said Colson, who has bounced in and out of the WNBA herself and is currently a free agent.

“People are talking about that now with Shey Peddy being in the league for Phoenix. From several teams, people will be surprised sometimes if players pop out of obscurity in their mind. But really, people have been around — they just haven’t been given an opportunity.”

Emma Hruby is an associate editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @EHruby.