Cara Consuera brings in the rising sophomore transfer from Georgia Tech.
New Marquette women’s basketball head coach Cara Consuegra continues to restock and rebuild the roster for her program. We’ve already documented the additions of Aryelle Stevens and Olivia Porter, not to mention Lee Volker withdrawing from the transfer portal to stay at Marquette. On Sunday, we got news of another inbound transfer, as Georgia Tech forward/center Jada Bediako committed to play for the Golden Eagles starting this fall.
Bediako, who measures in at 6’3”, was at Georgia Tech for her freshman season in 2023-24. She was playing a bit part off the bench to start the season, appearing in seven of GT’s first 12 games, but never playing more than 10 minutes. After about a month of not playing, she saw three minutes of action against Duke on January 14th, and then didn’t play again until seeing the floor for a little under eight minutes in what turned into the season finale against Mississippi State in the first round of the WBIT. Even then, she didn’t sub in until the second half when the Yellow Jackets were already down 20 on the road.
So, you can kind of understand why maaaaaaaaaaybe she was interested in a fresh start.
Bediako came into Georgia Tech fresh off of representing her home country of Canada in the 2023 FIBA U19 World Cup last July. She played in six of Canada’s seven games on their way to a third place finish, averaging 1.7 points and 1.3 rebounds per game. Now, yeah, that doesn’t sound like much. But I went out of my way to point this out because 1) International experience is neat and 2) this is a U19 roster that MU’s Skylar Forbes didn’t even go to training camp for after playing for the U18 team the year before. I’m not saying that Bediako is obviously better than Forbes….. but I am pointing out the decisions that Team Canada made.
In case you were wondering, “hey, that name sounds familiar,” let me help you out here. Yes, Jada Bediako is the younger sister of former Alabama center Charles Bediako and former Santa Clara/Seton Hall center Jaden Bediako. If she ends up averaging 10 points or seven rebounds a game at some point for Marquette, she will get to lay claim to bragging rights over her brothers as the best college basketball player in the family.
And now, Marquette’s brand new scholarship chart, with Bediako joining the Golden Eagles with three years of eligibility remaining.
Six of the nine women on the roster for 2024-25 are listed at six feet or taller. That’s not terrible. The roster is still heavily tilted towards the front court, especially with each of MU’s sophomores part of the group that’s taller than six feet. With nine women on board for next fall and six scholarship spots still open, I feel like Consuegra and her staff are still not close to done here, but they have to find a way to balance bringing bodies through the door to field a team and actually building long term. Right now, Marquette does not project to have any freshmen on the roster at all, which has upsides and downsides.