This year's Player of the Year race in women's college basketball has been absolutely loaded — Juju Watkins, Hannah Hidalgo and Lauren Betts jockeying for the top spot, putting up huge numbers and leading their teams to new heights.
But none of those talented players led the nation in scoring, that honor belonged to Florida State junior, Ta'Niya Latson.
This is actually the second time Latson has led the nation in scoring — she also did it as a freshman during the 2022-23 season. Across three seasons with the Seminoles, she's averaged 22.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.8 steals per game, shooting 44.8 percent from the field and 33.0 percent from beyond the arc.
The 5-foot-8 guard is clearly a WNBA-level talent but she won't be in the draft this year
Ta'Niya Latson will be available in the 2026 WNBA Draft
According to WNBA rules, to be eligible for the draft, a player must be four years out of high school or three years removed from school and 22 years old by Dec. 31 of the year of the draft. Latson will turn 22 on Dec. 26 which means she has the option of forgoing her final year of eligibility and entering the 2025 WNBA Draft. However, she's already told ESPN that she plans to return to Florida State for her senior season:
"I feel like I still have room to grow, and I'm in no rush, no rush at all. I want to get my degree and finish out the greatness that I've accomplished here at Florida State."
Where could Ta'Niya Latson be taken in the 2026 WNBA Draft?
Latson is certainly a first-round prospect given her immense productivity but there are questions about her ceiling at the next level. She's just 5-foot-8 which locks her into the backcourt, positionally, and continuing to develop her playmaking would allow her to split minutes between both guard positions and create more flexibility in lineup construction for her future team.
Her 3-point shooting is also another question mark. Latson is relentless off the dribble, a solid finisher and gets to the line at a high rate. But she's not an elite outside shooter and takes them at a relatively low volume — under 19 percent of her total shot attempts have come from beyond the arc. That's a clear difference between her game and that of other elite combo guards like Aziaha James
(40 percent), Paige Bueckers (32 percent), Hannah Hidalgo (25 percent) and Shyanne Sellers (24 percent).
There are precious few 2026 WNBA Mock Drafts available but she appears to be firmly in the top 5. In a hypothetical 2025 WNBA Mock Draft that presumed all college players were available regardless of age, she went No. 10 and was the third player taken who will be available for the 2026 draft, behind only Lauren Betts of UCLA and Flau’Jae Johnson of LSU.
Latson said in that interview with ESPN that winning a national championship is a goal. As a No. 6 seed, with a first-round matchup against George Mason and a potential second-round matchup against LSU looming, Florida State will have their work cut out for them. In addition to getting another crack at it next season, she'll have a chance to break into the top-25 all-time scoring leaderboard — needing 830 points, or roughly 27.6 per game across a 30-game season. But continuing to produce, polish her playmaking and improve her frequency and volume from beyond the arc could put her in contention for the No. 1 pick in 2026.