Jaden Owens is coming home, y’all!
The Baylor Lady Bears announced the addition of UCLA transfer Jaden Owens to their team in a Monday morning press conference.
The home-state star entered the transfer portal on April 14 and Baylor was a heavy favorite from the beginning as she considered the Lady Bears in High School before committing to the Bruins and is also closer to home.
The Plano, TX native, a suburb of Dallas and a bit less than two hours away from Waco, is coming off a freshman season where she was limited in minutes, 9.9 per game, due to being behind Bruin star and recent Chicago Sky draft pick, Japreece Dean.
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Owens averaged 2.6 points and 1.2 assists while shooting 28.4% from the field, 25% from three and 67.9% from the free throw line in 27 games.
Owens is a former five-star recruit and a McDonald’s All-American. She was ranked 13th overall and the third overall guard in the Class of 2019 according to ESPN.
Owens is a dominant shooter who knows how to distribute the ball and interrupt momentum on the defensive side.
As a senior at Plano West High School, she averaged 16.5 points and 4 assists per game as well as 3 steals, making her a threat on both ends.
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey is known to make guards into stars and has a great track record with transfer guards. She transformed Phoenix Mercury second-round draft pick Te’a Cooper into a floor general threat and helped drastically increase her statistics from the year prior when she was at South Carolina. Mulkey will be able to do the same thing to Owens while embodying a winning culture which is one of the aspects that attracted her to Baylor.
On Baylor’s culture, Owens stated, “It’s a winning program, and when you go there you have no other expectations but to win.”
Owens will join a 2020 class that includes a pair of fellow Texas natives and 5-star recruits, guard Sarah Andrews and post Hannah Gusters, both out of MacArthur High School in Irving, another suburb of Dallas.
Owens will have to sit out the 2020-2021 season pending a one-time transfer rule that the NCAA is currently mulling over.
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