Florida Women’s Basketball’s Leilani Correa Drafted By Indiana Fever

With the No. 27 pick of the 2024 WNBA draft, the Indiana Fever selected Leilani Correa, guard, Florida.

Correa is the first Gator to get drafted since Kiki Smith was selected by Connecticut in 2022. This past season Correa was named SEC’s sixth-woman of the year, surpassing 2,000 career points and led the conference in scoring with an average of 21.38 points a game.

She will now have the chance to earn a spot on the Fever and play with the No.1 overall pick Caitlin Clark.

Dreams to reality. @leilani_anais has been selected by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft!@IndianaFever | #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/ZV3qisGJcL

— Gators Women’s Basketball (@GatorsWBK) April 16, 2024

Collegiate Beginnings

The Manchester, N.J., native transferred to Florida after spending her first two seasons at St. John’s. As a freshman, she won the BIG EAST Sixth Woman of the Year award, selected unanimously to the BIG EAST All Freshman Team and made the BIG EAST All-Tournament Team.

She represented the Red Storm for two more seasons.  Correa made the All-Met first team her sophomore year and was the All-Big East First Team selection in both her sophomore and junior seasons. In her final year at St. John’s, she was able to eclipse the 1,000-career points mark, the 27th player in school history to do so, and finished with 1,272 points.

New Challenge

Correa transferred to Florida for the 2022-23 season. The Puerto Rican played in 27 games, starting six of them. She averaged 11.8 points and 3.6 rebounds.

One season repping the Gators wasn’t enough, as Correa stayed for another year. She had a leap in production, finding her stride coming off the bench averaging just under 17 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists a game. Her efforts earned her the SEC sixth-woman of the year award. Correa was also named to the 2024 SEC Coaches All-Conference Second Team.

Under UF coach Kelley Rae Finley, Correa scored an even 860 points. On March 3, she was celebrated alongside teammates Zippy Broughton and Faith Dut on Senior Night. Her final game in her collegiate career was against her former school in the WBIT.

https://twitter.com/GatorsWBK/status/1764737761204965869

The Big Leagues

Correa’s name was called out with the first pick of the third round Monday. She will be traveling to Indiana to meet with other draftees Caitlin Clark from Iowa and Celeste Taylor from Ohio State.

https://twitter.com/IndianaFever/status/1780219603584758172