{"id":796766,"date":"2026-08-01T04:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/796766\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:46:09","slug":"ex-cal-player-michelle-onyiah-joins-wnba-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/796766\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Cal Player Michelle Onyiah Joins WNBA &#8212; Sort Of"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Former California women&#8217;s basketball player Michelle Onyiah this week signed a WNBA developmental contract with the Indiana Fever.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">Each WNBA team can put two players on its developmental squad, which is sort of like being on the active roster but not entirely.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">Onyiah is not on the Fever\u2019s 12-player active roster, but she can practice with the team, travel with the team and participate in team meetings.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">She can be placed on the active roster at any time \u2013 typically because of an injury to a teammate \u2013 and can play up to 12 regular-season games.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">Onyiah had been playing in the UpShoit, which is the WNBA\u2019s version of the NBA\u2019s G-League.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">She played in 21 games for the Charlotte Crown and averaged 9.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.1 blocks.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">The other former Cal player in the WNBA, Marta Suarez, is now a member of the Phoenix Comets\u2019 active roster after starting the season on a developmental contract. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">Suarez, who played two seasons at Cal before playing her final college season at TCU, has played in 11 games for the Comets this season and is averaging 4.0 points and 1.4 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">Suarez and Onyiah were teammates on the Golden Bears\u2019 2024-2025 team that finished with a 25-9 record and played in the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">Onyiah played at Cal for five seasons, and was a starter in his final season in 2024-2025, averaging 12.4 points and 7.6 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">The 6-foot-3 Onyiah is appealing to WNBA teams because of her potential as an outstanding athlete with size.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former California women&#8217;s basketball player Michelle Onyiah this week signed a WNBA developmental contract with the Indiana Fever.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-796766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}