A basketball phenom with ties to the nation’s capital is taking her game to the pros. Cassandre Prosper excelled playing high school basketball in Ottawa, and her career will reach new heights, as she makes professional debut in the WNBA next month. From the Capital Courts Academy, all the way to the U.S. capital, Prosper was the nineteenth pick of the 2026 WNBA draft, selected by the Washington Mystics. “My goals have always been to get to ‘The W’,” says Prosper. “And now I got to figure out my other goals now that I’m here.” At 17, the Montreal-born basketball star moved to Ottawa to take her game to the next level. She enrolled in the Capital Courts Academy and graduated from Cairine Wilson Secondary School. “They had a great Capital Courts Academy that was going to be able to challenge me. I was going to be able to grow as a player. I also knew that (it) was going to help propel my basketball career,” says Prosper. One of her coaches at the Academy, Fabienne Blizzard, or “Coach Fab,” saw something special in how she played early after enrolling. “There’s was no doubt in my mind that she will be getting to her dream,” says Blizzard. “I think the biggest thing is basically their habits off the floor…and being a great human. A lot of people what they don’t always see in someone like a Cass is, that she’s so driven.” From Ottawa, Prosper enrolled early at the University of Notre Dame in 2022. She also represented Canada on the Olympic stage in 2024. Then after a breakout senior year with the Fighting Irish in 2025-26, Prosper decided to forego her final year of college eligibility, to enter the WNBA draft. “Making that decisions for myself, I was like this is my last year in college and I want to finish college in a way that I’m proud of. I gave my everything to my training and then that summer, I got a mental coach, but I also went and trained in L.A. with my brother for two weeks,” says Prosper. Basketball runs deep in the Prosper family. Both parents played basketball for Concordia University, brother Olivier-Maxence, or “O-Max,” was drafted to the NBA in 2023 and currently plays for the Memphis Grizzlies. “We don’t just talk about basketball,” says Prosper, “I feel like basketball bonds us a lot and especially now, you know, we’re two pro athletes so we have a lot to relate about.” Big brother is constantly sharing words of advice, as they became the first Canadian-born brother-sister duo to be drafted into the WNBA and NBA. “When I got my name called, I (took) like a little breath in and having my family right there with me was amazing,” says Prosper. Along with family on draft day, Coach Fab who helped shape her career, says he is also living the dream. “(Prosper) chose to have me there, which is what a coach wants,” says Blizzard. “This was the script she was writing right now with the chapter that she had with us, and she was going to continue chapter two at Notre Dame and next thing you know, when she gave me a call saying, ‘Hey Coach, Do you want to come to the draft?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh yes! I’m coming.’” So now the next chapter begins in Washington, D.C., when prosper suits up for the Washington Mystics in May. “I just feel like there’s a lot of great things in my future and now is when I get started on that.”
