The\u00a0Toronto Tempo\u2019s first-ever WNBA Draft selection has been made.<\/p>\n
UCLA\u2019s Kiki Rice was taken sixth overall by Canada\u2019s new WNBA franchise in the 2026 Draft on Monday.<\/p>\n
The senior guard averaged 14.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.5 steals through 38 games and played a key role for the Bruins en route to a national title. She also shot career-bests across the board at 49 per cent from the field, 38.5 per cent from beyond the arc and 90.2 per cent at the foul line this season.<\/p>\n
Rice was the third consecutive UCLA player selected on Monday behind Lauren Betts (Washington Mystics) and Gabriela Jaquez (Chicago Sky).<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old brings a decorated resume to the Tempo that includes a 2025-26 All-American selection, two All-Big Ten nods, 2025-26 Big Ten All-Defence and 2025-26 Big Ten tournament MVP.<\/p>\n
Rice joins a Toronto roster still in its infancy stages, yet one that appears chock-full of dynamic guard talent. The Tempo added veteran guards Marina Mabrey and Julie Allemand through the expansion draft and then signed Brittney Sykes via free agency.<\/p>\n
Toronto still has three picks to make on Monday with two second-round selections (Nos. 22 and 26) and a third-rounder (No. 36).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Toronto Tempo\u2019s first-ever WNBA Draft selection has been made. UCLA\u2019s Kiki Rice was taken sixth overall by Canada\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-602400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602400","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=602400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}