A week after UCLA women’s basketball captured its first national title in the NCAA era, six former Bruins heard their names called in the 2026 WNBA Draft. Those players dominated the 2025-26 Bruin squad, accounting for every point scored in the Final Four and national championship games. With them no longer part of the squad, coach Cori Close’s team will consist of several fresh faces in the coming season. Assistant Sports editor Sinclair Richman breaks down the Bruins’ transfers and analyzes the impact they could bring to the squad.
Donovyn Hunter
Senior guard Donovyn Hunter joins the Bruins after two seasons at TCU. A former Pac-12 foe who spent her freshman year at Oregon State, Hunter’s experience in back-to-back Elite Eights will allow her to transition smoothly to UCLA.
The Medford, Oregon, local started all 38 of her games last season, averaging 10.2 points, 2.1 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game across 33.9 minutes. She also shot 45.7% from the field and 33.7% from beyond the arc through the season.
In her sophomore campaign, Hunter boasted a 1.81 assist-to-turnover ratio – ninth in the Big 12. Her ability to handle the ball and create scoring opportunities will make up for the departures of former Bruin guards Charlisse Leger-Walker and Kiki Rice, who accounted for 376 of the Bruins’ 834 assists through the season.
Last season, everyone on the Bruins’ roster was at least 5-foot-10, with four of the six draftees being at least 6 feet tall. Hunter’s size will fill in the gaps left in the backcourt after the departure of several key pieces.
With the squad boasting only five returners, having a more experienced player who has spent time on a top team in the country should allow for an easier continuation of the Bruins’ winning program.
Hunter will be expected to fill in the gaps as a leader and a ball-handler at UCLA, both of which will be crucial for the squad’s rebuilding.
Elina Aarnisalo
Elina Aarnisalo’s name may sound familiar to the Bruin faithful.
The junior guard is coming back to Westwood – where she competed as a freshman – after spending her sophomore campaign at North Carolina. Aarnisalo was part of a 2024 recruiting class that all departed UCLA after one season.
In her sophomore campaign with the Tar Heels, she averaged 10.2 points and 3.4 rebounds on a 47.3% clip from the field and a 40.4% mark from the 3-point line. She also boasted three 20-plus point performances and eight 15-plus point performances throughout the year, with five of these games occurring throughout the last seven matches of the season.
Through her freshman year, she averaged 21 minutes per game – the most among her class. In the 2024-25 season, she had five double-digit outings, with her two highest-scoring performances coming in the first three games of the year.
Her time already spent with Close makes her familiar with the Bruin playbook, which will be crucial for a quick acclimation. She will be taking on a bigger role than she had as a freshman, but her time with the Tar Heels should allow her to step into that leading position smoothly.
KK Bransford
After four years at Notre Dame – with one season off due to injury – fifth-year guard KK Bransford is looking to make her mark at UCLA.
Primarily coming off the bench for the Fighting Irish, Bransford’s best scoring year came as a freshman, when she posted 8.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists, earning her a spot on the All-ACC Freshman Team.
Bransford redshirted the 2024-25 season because of an injury but returned for her senior year looking for redemption. Through her 2025-26 campaign, she averaged 7.4 points, four rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.1 steals across 24 games, having to sit out part of the year because of a knee issue.
Her comeback sparked a 12-3 run for the Fighting Irish, and Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey credited Bransford and her senior leadership as the spark plug the team needed. She also proved vital in Notre Dame’s run to the Elite Eight as a No. 6 seed.
The Cincinnati local has played every position but center at some point in her career. Similarly to former Bruin guard Gabriela Jaquez, Bransford is a jack-of-all-trades. Her ability to shapeshift into what the Bruins need will bode well for Close, who is looking for new players to make her “passion plays.”
Bonnie Deas
Guard Bonnie Deas is coming from the Land Down Under to join the Bruins for her sophomore season.
The Melbourne, Australia, local played her 2025-26 season with Arkansas, where she started all 32 of her games. Through her freshman campaign, she averaged 10.2 points and nine rebounds per game.
Her shooting splits could be improved, posting a 32% clip from the field and a 24.5% mark from downtown.
But both Rice and Jaquez saw consistent improvement in their shooting marks through their time in Westwood, so Deas’ future could hold similar improvement to what was seen with the reigning national champions.
Also promising is her nine rebounds per game, a mark that would have sat first on the UCLA squad last year. At only 5-foot-9, her ability to read the ball and grab boards also makes her similar to Rice and Jaquez, who combined for 11.4 rebounds a game last season.
Deas was a consistent double-digit scorer, tallying a career-high 25 points in the Razorbacks’ season opener last year.
Coming from a 12-20 program that went 1-15 in conference play to a team that dropped just one game en route to a national championship will be a big switch-up. But Deas’ ability to crash the glass is something that cannot be taught – and that will bode well for the Bruins.
Addy Brown
Nine players from Iowa State entered the transfer portal after the 2025-26 campaign.
One of those was senior forward Addy Brown.
As the only frontcourt player the Bruins picked up from the portal, Brown will likely have to fill in gaps left by former Bruins forward Angela Dugalić and center Lauren Betts. Her most recent season was the lowest-scoring in her collegiate career, but the mark is the highest of all of the transfers.
After a strong sophomore season when she averaged 15.2 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game – marks that earned her All-Big 12 Second Team honors – Brown entered her junior campaign with her name on five watchlists, including for the Wooden Award and the Naismith Trophy.
Brown averaged 11.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists on 43.1% shooting across 21 games last season. Although she missed 11 games last season to injury, Brown has started in all 89 of her career games.
Despite standing at only 6-foot-2 as a forward, her ability to read her teammates and find them for open shots makes her important if the Bruins run a 3-pointer-heavy game once again.
Brown’s scoring ability, combined with her consistency on the glass, will nicely fill in the gaps left by the graduated Bruins. Her ability to feed her teammates will allow more players to open up and get easy points.
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