WBB Gonzaga: Player Update – The Slipper Still Fits

I’ve often bemoaned the lack of coverage on college women’s basketball, and will likely continue moving forward, but I have some cool news today about some recent former Zags I wanted to share with you.

First up, forward Naya Ojukwu announced on her instagram last week that she was transferring to Morgan State University. Located in the north section of Baltimore, the Bears play in the MEAC and finished last season with a 8-22 (3-11) record. Looking at this team’s roster and their incoming transfers, Naya looks to be entering a team without a clear front court pairing as they lost one, Joelle Johnson, to graduation and the other, Laila Fair, is coming off an injury riddled season that saw her play just 15 games.

I’m not sure what to make of the caption, but lets not read into this too deeply. With this being her third program in three years, I hope that Naya finds her footing and takes off to fulfill the potential that we’ve covered here before.

Up next, Calli Stokes announced on her instagram not too long ago that she had enrolled at the University of South Alabama and is taking part in their track team. The team’s official roster lists Calli as a member of the pole vault team and, interestingly enough, as a freshman.

I hope that this change of direction suits Calli well and that she finds her happiness. Onwards and upwards for the Southern Californian.

Up next, an update on the Truong sisters. After Kaylynne got waived by the Washington Mystics, information from the twins pretty much came to a stand still outside of a instagram post highlighting their first basketball camp and some gym highlights from Kaylynne. Then, out of the blue, the twitter account Women’s Hoops Network dropped a post with some clips of the twins playing for the NEPLW League in Houston.

The No Excuses Pro League is a Summer Pro-Am in Houston that features both Men and Women’s leagues. I’m not too sure about the overall reputation or status of this competition, but to see our former stars continuing the game is awesome to see in my opinion.

The sisters featured in five of the six games that Lady Iss Jus Uss played from June 13th to July 28th and both had a good showing. Kaylynne averaged 13.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.8 turnovers while Kayleigh averaged 14.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.2 steals, and 3.2 turnovers. Neither shot the ball particularly well, but that’s not really an area I’d critique too hard in this kind of competition.

Then, when I was digging even further, I found this twitter post wishing Kaylynne luck at “acbaok”, which I couldn’t find any information on, but I recognized the colors of the scarf in accompanying picture from my soccer knowledge and I found out that she signed on to play in Greece for PAOK! The Thessaloniki based club plays in the top division of Greek Women’s Basketball and finished the season 8-12 last season. Kaylynne will be stepping into a uncertain situation as PAOK have lost two of their best guards from last season, Morgan Jones who was selected to the All Greek League 1st Team and Keiunna Walker who was selected the 2nd Team, so hopefully she can take advantage of this fluid environment to impress teams and scouts with her talent.

I haven’t found anything detailing Kayleigh’s next steps, but hopefully she can latch on somewhere and get some experience at the higher level because I think she deserves a chance

And finally, an update on Brynna Maxwell. I found this one just by digging through eurobasket.com and trying correlate my findings there with the actual team websites. Via this method, I discovered some reporting that Brynna is currently signed with Celta Vigo, a Spanish club located in the Northwest of the country just above Portugal. The team’s website doesn’t feature Maxwell, but they also haven’t updated their website since August 2023. Additionally, Brynna hasn’t posted any updates on instagram or other social media site that I can find at this time so consider this update a tentative one.

Brynna’s potentially new club plays in the Liga Femenina Endesa, the highest professional division in Spain, and, after getting promoted from the second tier last season, went on to finish 10-20 for a 14th place finish, one spot above the relegation threshold. Celta Vigo have a strong history in Spanish basketball having won the championship five times, but they haven’t faired well recently with their last championship coming in 2000 and were outside the top division from 2012-13 until last season.

Hopefully Brynna can help her team stay in the top division and potentially make a surprise trip into the top 8, which would qualify them for the playoffs.