When the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, UConn had just one national championship.
Kim Mulkey had never been a head coach. Dawn Staley had never coached. The WNBA was just three years old and had only one champion, the Houston Comets. Diana Taurasi was in high school. Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark had yet to be born.
As the year 2000 wore on, UConn would win the second of what is now 11 NCAA titles. Baylor hired Mulkey and Temple hired Staley. (Mulkey, now at LSU, has won four national championships while Staley, now at South Carolina, has won three.) The Comets won a fourth consecutive title. Taurasi graduated and headed to UConn (she is now in her 20th WNBA season). Reese and Clark? They wouldn’t arrive until 2002.
As we look back on nearly a quarter-century of amazing growth in women’s basketball, who have been the best players from 2000 until now?
We ranked the WNBA’s all-time top 25 in 2021, but this list is different. One big name is missing: Cynthia Cooper. That’s because for this list — part of ESPN’s ranking of the top 100 professional athletes since 2000 — we only considered achievements since 2000, which was her last season in the WNBA. Three of her WNBA championships, her two MVP awards, her two Olympic appearances and her college career at USC all occurred…
