After a historic inaugural WNBA season for the Golden State Valkyries, featuring record attendance figures and a surprising playoff berth, new fans of the franchise watched to see how the team aimed to capitalize off the massive wave of support and early success. With the WNBA draft taking place in New York City on April 13, all eyes were on the Valkyries.<\/p>\n
In a shocking draft night move, Golden State traded the draft rights of the No. 8 overall pick, Flau\u2019je Johnson, to the Seattle Storm in exchange for a future second-round pick and, more significantly, the draft rights of the No. 16 overall pick, former Bear Marta Su\u00e1rez.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was already riding a high \u2014 just to hear your name and to share that moment with your loved ones,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said in an interview after the draft. \u201cBut the moment they told me I\u2019m going back to the Bay and I know my support group there \u2026 (I was) extremely excited, extremely humbled, extremely grateful and so thankful to get that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez began her collegiate career at Tennessee before transferring to Cal at the end of her sophomore year and quickly blossoming into a full-time player. Anchoring the forward position, Su\u00e1rez started every game across her two seasons as a Bear, averaging 12.4 points and seven rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
As a senior in the 2024-25 season, the 6\u20193\u201d Spaniard helped Cal to a 25-9 overall record and the Bears\u2019 first appearance in the NCAA women\u2019s basketball tournament since 2019. At the end of the season, Su\u00e1rez graduated from Cal with a degree in interdisciplinary studies, marking a celebratory ending to her time in Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez\u2019s collegiate story didn\u2019t end with the blue and gold, however, as she committed to TCU this past season to play as a graduate transfer student. With the Horned Frogs, Su\u00e1rez was the team\u2019s second leading scorer while averaging a career-high 17.1 points to go along with 7.4 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
She helped lead TCU to its second straight Big 12 regular season title and an NCAA Elite Eight appearance that was highlighted by a 33-point double-double against Virginia in the Sweet Sixteen. For her efforts, Su\u00e1rez was one of three players selected unanimously to the All-Big 12 First Team.<\/p>\n
Her success at Cal and in Fort Worth boosted her draft stock, and now Su\u00e1rez will be exchanging her TCU colors for another shade of purple.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the purple and just got very excited,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said. \u201cI had talked to the GM and a couple people from the team just in the process of getting to know each other, and they had touched my heart. So to know that somehow I made an impact on them as well \u2026 just very, very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez will have the chance to make an impact not only on her new teammates and coaches but also on fans in \u201cBallhalla\u201d who remember her fondly as a Bear. The second-round pick will now open a new chapter of her basketball journey in a familiar setting as the newest member of the Golden State Valkyries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a historic inaugural WNBA season for the Golden State Valkyries, featuring record attendance figures and a surprising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[1442,76162,49,95402,229440,48,18088,1612,164205,229441,167,82,145027,229442,67164,10231,630,38381],"class_list":{"0":"post-608141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-berkeley","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-cal","12":"tag-cal-womens-basketball","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-golden-state","15":"tag-golden-state-valkyries","16":"tag-horned-frogs","17":"tag-marta-surez","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-tcu","21":"tag-tcu-womens-basketball","22":"tag-uc-berkeley","23":"tag-valkyries","24":"tag-wnba","25":"tag-wnba-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608141","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=608141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}