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Ramona Shelburne
McKenna Woliczkothe No. 6 player in the girls’ SportsCenter NEXT 100 class, has committed to Iowashe announced Wednesday.
The 6-foot-2 forward from Archbishop Mitty High School in California becomes coach Jan Jensen’s highest-rated recruit in the post-Caitlin Clark era and has drawn some initial comparisons to the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer because of her star potential on and off the court.
“Obviously Caitlin’s a great player, and obviously she put Iowa on the map,” Woliczko told ESPN. “But I also watched a lot of other Iowa players growing up. Megan GustafsonMonika Czinano, I would always watch them and thought they were awesome.”
While Woliczko said she hasn’t had direct contact with Clark, she did notice that the Indiana Fever star reacted to a social media post while she was on her Iowa recruiting visit and Jensen has told her that Clark has checked in on how the recruiting process has gone.
Ultimately, Woliczko said her choice came down to Iowa or South Carolina. She sent South Carolina a handwritten thank-you note after her recruiting visit that coach Dawn Staley reacted to on social mediacalling her an “extraordinary human being.”
Woliczko said she was genuinely torn between the Hawkeyes and Gamecocks and could see herself happy in both places.
“There were no cons to either of them,” she said. “That’s what I feel like was the hardest part. After my visits, I was like, ‘I could see myself at both places.’
“Both places were full of great people, whether that was teammates, coaches, anything. And so I wish I could live two lives to be able to go to either one of these schools, but obviously that’s not how it works.”
She chose Iowa in the end because of the connection she built with Jensen, the team and the feeling she got being in Iowa City.
Before missing the majority of her high school junior season and the entirety of the summer club season due to an ACL tear, Woliczko had led her Mitty squad to the Nike TOC Championship in Phoenix in December. She also represented Team USA at the 2023 FIBA Americas U16 Championship and the 2024 FIBA U17 World Cup, being named to the All-Star Five at each event.
She said she has made slow but steady progress throughout her rehabilitation and that the next benchmark will be Oct. 29, the nine-month mark after surgery.
“I feel like some of the best advice I’ve received is — and this was actually from a coach at Stanford — she told me that there’s so many great people that you look up to in the Hall of Fame, your favorite WNBA player, that have torn their ACL before,” Woliczko said. “All those people have done it, and they came back better than ever. That’s just something that kind of stuck with me. Obviously it’s hard for anybody to go through it, but I just feel like I’ve had a great support system from family and friends and coaches.”
Woliczko is a power on the glass with a never-ending motor. She does her damage around the rim and in the paint, making effort plays running the rim and on second-opportunity offensive rebounds and putbacks. She had begun to show improvements in range and the ability to attack the basket off the dribble before her injury.
She is the first commit for Iowa in the 2026 class. The Hawkeyes are still in the mix for five-star Addison Bjorn and four-star Amari Byles. They had the 22nd-ranked class in 2025 headlined by guard Addison Deal.
Asked which players she studies the most, Woliczko said, “Someone that I actually really like to watch is [Fever guard] Lexie Hull. Her mentality and just how tough she is, it’s just really inspiring. I watched her at Stanford with her sister, and it was so fun to watch. A’ja Wilson‘s obviously very fun to watch, and [Breanna] Stewart is incredible.”
ESPN’s Shane Laflin contributed to this report.
