Maryland women’s basketball picked up its first player in the transfer portal this offseason as NC State’s Jakia Brown-Turner announced she would be joining the Terps next season on Instagram Thursday.
“I decided on Maryland because I wanted to come home for my last year. What better way to spend my last year of playing college basketball than being back home where it all started and joining a successful program,” she said in the team’s press release.
Brown-Turner, an Oxon Hill native, spent her first four years of college with the Wolfpack before entering the transfer portal last week. The 6-foot senior averaged 9.1 points per game and 3.9 rebounds per game during the 2022-23 season. Over her four years at NC State, she scored 1,273 points and nabbed 526 rebounds.
The Bishop McNamara High School graduate was the 2019 Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year and was the No. 15 recruit in her class by ESPN.
[Diamond Miller enters WNBA Draft after four seasons with Maryland women’s basketball]
“We actually recruited [Brown-Turner] out of high school, so we knew her from back then. [Brown-Turner] is a proven player and winner at our game’s highest level. She’s proven to be a clutch player in big time games,” coach Brenda Frese said in the press release.
Brown-Turner fills one of the Terps’ four open roster positions after the transfers of freshman Gia Cooke, Mila Reynolds and Ava Sciolla and the decommitment of recruit Amiyah Reynolds. With Diamond Miller and Abby Meyers, the team’s two top scorers, heading to the WNBA Draft, Brown-Turner will add scoring depth to next year’s team.
Her ability to drive to the basket and score will help the Terps try to make up for Miller’s absence on the court next year, while her career 34.4 shooting percentage from three makes her a threat from outside the arc.
With three more open roster spots and more than 400 players in the transfer portal Brown-Turner will likely not be the Terps’ only experienced addition to the incoming class.
