{"id":584692,"date":"2026-04-05T23:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T23:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/584692\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T23:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T23:13:08","slug":"lady-vols-basketball-forward-two-former-players-slotted-in-updated-wnba-mock-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/584692\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Vols Basketball Forward, Two Former Players Slotted in Updated WNBA Mock Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>Photo via @LadyVol_Hoops on X<\/p>\n

The 2025-26 women\u2019s basketball season is in the books. UCLA is cutting down the nets after downing South Carolina in the national title game on Sunday afternoon. For Lady Vols basketball, it couldn\u2019t survive a cataclysmic late-season skid and fell in the Round of 64 to NC State as a 10-seed.<\/p>\n

Now, with the season over, attention turns to the transfer portal for players with remaining eligibility and the WNBA draft for stars out of eligibility or wanting to make the step to the professional ranks early.<\/p>\n

Heading into the title game, CBS<\/a> updated its mock draft for the first two rounds. Former Tennessee star Janiah Barker is placed as the 16th overall selection, making her the first pick off the board in the second round. This would send her to the Seattle Storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarker is a clear first-round talent, but she just hasn\u2019t shown enough consistency throughout her college career, which ended in strange circumstances with a suspension in February and a DNP \u2014 Illness in Tennessee\u2019s NCAA Tournament defeat,\u201d CBS\u2019 Jack Maloney wrote<\/a>. \u201cShe\u2019s certainly worth a flier for the Storm with their third pick of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0A look at the Lady Vols\u2019 2026-27 Roster Entering the Transfer Portal Window<\/a><\/p>\n

Barker isn\u2019t the only player with Tennessee ties listed, though. A pair of former Lady Vols under Kellie Harper are also listed as projected picks in the second round.<\/p>\n

At pick 17, just behind Barker, Marta Suarez is projected to be selected by the Portland Fire. The forward from Spain began her career at Tennessee, but transferred out to Cal after two years at UT. She then played two seasons for the Golden Bears before concluding her career with TCU this season.<\/p>\n

At pick 25, Justin Pissott is projected to be taken by the Indiana Fever. The sharpshooter and former five-star played her freshman season with the Lady Vols before transferring to in-state rival Vanderbilt for her final three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo via @LadyVol_Hoops on X The 2025-26 women\u2019s basketball season is in the books. UCLA is cutting down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[76200,49,48,223403,223404,223405,82,223406,630,38381],"class_list":{"0":"post-584692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-2026-wnba-draft","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-janiah-barker","12":"tag-lady-vols","13":"tag-lady-vols-basketball","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennessee-lady-vols","16":"tag-wnba","17":"tag-wnba-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}