The Athletic has live coverage of the 2023 WNBA Draft. 

Stephanie Soares arrived on Iowa State’s campus last spring looking to take on one final collegiate challenge. Up to that point, she had completed her undergraduate studies at The Master’s University, a small Christian college in Santa Clarita, Calif. She had torn her left ACL ahead of her junior season, but took home NAIA Player of the Year honors for the second time during her senior campaign. A 6-foot-6 center with a deft touch from the perimeter, Soares had professional aspirations. And she wanted to compete against tougher competition. Even her coach of three years with the Mustangs, Dan Waldeck, gave her a push to transfer. “Go play at a top level program,” he told her.

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Yet Soares couldn’t have predicted the obstacle that would alter her first — and only — season in Ames. Less than two minutes into Iowa State’s top-20 matchup against Oklahoma on Jan. 8, Soares fell to the floor after attempting an awkward jump-hook. She immediately clutched her left knee. She needed help exiting the court. That night, thoughts raced through Soares’ head. Some she had pondered before: What’s going to happen next? What am I going to look like next year? Can I be the same player I was working to be? This time, however, she also wondered if she was out of time to find answers.

Soares grew up in Nova Odessa, Brazil, on a missionary camp around 100 miles from São Paulo. She played three of her four high school seasons in Brazil — she attended Mount Baker High School in Washington, while living with her grandparents during her junior year — before attending Master’s and eventually making a pit-stop in Ames. Despite two ACL tears in a 27-month span, her winding path has led her to the 2023 WNBA Draft, where on Monday night she likely will be taken in the first six selections. “A unique journey for sure, but some team is gonna be really really happy with her,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly says. “I promise.”

Call it promise or potential, Soares’ appeal to those at the top of the draft is what she might one day become. A WNBA general manager told The Athletic Soares was intriguing because of her athleticism and 3-point shooting ability. Though league evaluators and Soares say she needs to get stronger, she showcased her distinctive skill set routinely at Master’s and Iowa State.

It’s also likely that Soares’ latest injury might have helped her draft stock. Though her rehab has been successful thus far, she told The Athletic she isn’t planning to rush back for the upcoming WNBA season. As a result, whatever team drafts her can help her recover, improve and mature within their program, all without having to worry about the 22-year-old center taking up a roster spot. “I kind of thought it could be a blessing in disguise,” Waldeck says of her being a draft-and-stash.

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Soares won’t be the first WNBA rookie to redshirt what would have otherwise been her debut professional season. Consider that the Liberty’s No. 6 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, Nyara Sabally, missed all of last year due to a knee injury. Still, Soares is open about the value in her doing so. “I think that extra work will for sure help me develop as a player,” she says.

Though sidelined at Master’s and ISU, she learned to be more patient and disciplined, and to embrace different roles on a team. Among those roles she took on at Iowa State was serving as an assistant coach during the team’s manager games. It was a positive way, she said, to spend time with friends and be around the sport but not think about her own physical limitations.

Basketball has been intertwined with Soares’ life for as long as she can remember. Her mother, Susan, played at Texas from 1986-90, starting 97 of 132 games. Her father, Rogerio, played at Master’s. Both kept ties to the sport, working with Athletes in Action, a part of the Cru ministry that promotes the intersection of faith and sports. In Nova Odessa, when not riding bicycles with her four siblings through the hills of her town’s sugarcane fields, Soares relished time on one of the camp’s three courts.

Fennelly first remembers watching Soares play for a Texas-based AAU team coached by former U.S. Olympian Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil. They met then, but he never thought he would coach the future Cyclones center. “Master’s is where the family goes,” Fennelly says.

“I grew in my faith,” Soares says of her time there.

Her game improved too. From her first practices with the Mustangs, Waldeck pushed his star center not to float to the 3-point line. Instead, the school’s head coach of 13 years wanted to build Soares’ game “from the inside-out.” The two took part in individual workouts, improving her footwork around the rim and how she created space without dribbling. In game play, Soares fought to seal off undersized bigs. “She had to work mentally on playing above the interference,” Waldeck says.

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Yet perhaps no moment challenged her more than when she tore her ACL in October 2020 while playing one-on-one with a practice player. Almost immediately, a teammate called Waldeck and told him Soares had injured herself. He rushed to the gym. “Coach, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she told him. He replied: “What are you sorry for?”

“As hard as that was, she really grew up a ton because of that,” Waldeck says now.

Soares learned not only to thrive at the NAIA level, but also to position herself for what was to come. “She just did everything right and never complained,” Waldeck says.

She brought a similar attitude to Ames, where Fennelly was excited to have a center who could play a pick-and-pop style and assimilate easily into his veteran team. “She walked in and basically said, I will do whatever you ask me to do,” Fennelly recalls.

While there, her physical tools remained on display. Fennelly cites a workout last summer in which he saw her make 49 of 50 3-point attempts. “I said, ‘Oh s—,” he says. While she played just a dozen full games with the Cyclones — averaging 14.4 points, 9.9 rebounds and three blocks per contest — Fennelly came away impressed. “It’s 12 games I’m never going to forget, that’s for sure,” he says.

6’6 Stephanie Soares had 23 points off 9-11 from the field in the Iowa State win!

— Courtside Films (@CourtsideFilms) November 17, 2022

Following her injury, the school applied for a waiver to try to earn her another year of eligibility. But Fennelly acknowledged the program “knew it was a long shot.” Nevertheless, he says, “She looks the part. She acts the part. And I think she’s gonna be in the league for a very long time.”

Her on-court impact might not be felt until May of 2024. But whatever team selects her surely will be hoping Fennelly’s prediction comes to fruition. At Monday’s draft, Soares will be in New York, surrounded by the entirety of her immediate family for the first time in nearly two years. Together, they’ll receive an answer to what’s next in her journey.

(Photo of Stephanie Soares: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)