{"id":4272,"date":"2026-04-14T09:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/4272\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T09:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:02:11","slug":"tempo-news-toronto-selects-ucla-star-with-historic-pick-at-2026-wnba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/4272\/","title":{"rendered":"Tempo news: Toronto selects UCLA star with historic pick at 2026 WNBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The expansion Toronto Tempo<\/a> made franchise history Monday night, selecting Kiki Rice with their first-ever pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rice was taken sixth overall, marking a notable run for UCLA Bruins women’s basketball players\u00a0<\/a>early in the draft.<\/p>\n

Rice’s selection made it three UCLA players chosen within the first six picks<\/a> and the third consecutive selection from the program, as reported by Alexa Philippou of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n

In her final season at UCLA, Rice recorded an average <\/a>of 14.9 points per game, 5.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists, per ESPN Stats. Across her entire college career, she averaged 13.1 points per game, 4.9 rebounds and 4.2 steals.<\/p>\n

The draft opened Monday with the Dallas Wings selecting Azzi Fudd No. 1 overall, followed by Olivia Miles to the Minnesota Lynx at No. 2 and Awa Fam Thiam to the Seattle Storm at No. 3. Meanwhile, Rice’s former UCLA teammate Lauren Betts was selected No. 4 overall by the Washington Mystics, followed by UCLA’s Gabriela Jaquez at No. 5 to the Chicago Sky. In the second round, Charlisse Leger-Walker was drafted by the Connecticut Sun.<\/p>\n

Rice, Betts and Jaquez all contributed to the Bruins’ NCAA title run<\/a>, earning UCLA’s first championship in the NCAA era.<\/p>\n

During the second round<\/a>, the Tempo selected Teonni Key and Saffron Shiels. Key, a forward from Kentucky, averaged 7.3 points per game during her college career, which was split between Kentucky and the University of North Carolina. Shiels is a player from Australia with experience in the country’s Women’s National Basketball League.<\/p>\n

The Tempo have one draft pick remaining in the third round.<\/p>\n

The expansion Toronto Tempo made franchise history Monday night, selecting Kiki Rice with their first-ever pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft. Rice was taken sixth overall, marking a notable run for UCLA Bruins women’s basketball players early in the draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The expansion Toronto Tempo made franchise history Monday night, selecting Kiki Rice with their first-ever pick in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[48,2318,2665,2317,2666],"class_list":{"0":"post-4272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-toronto","9":"tag-toronto-tempo","10":"tag-ucla-womens-basketball","11":"tag-wnba","12":"tag-wnba-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}