Ezinne Kalu starred for five seasons at Savannah State, leading the women’s basketball team to the MEAC championship and the NCAA tournament in 2015.
She will return to Georgia nearly a decade later, this time as a professional, as the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream announced Wednesday they signed Kalu a seven-day hardship contract.
Welcome, @_the9jaqueen !
https://t.co/IlVoD0Jckn pic.twitter.com/DXIzNlw1wo
— Atlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) September 18, 2024
Kalu played for the Tigers from 2010-2015, scoring 2,119 points and leading the team to their only MEAC tournament title and NCAA Division I tournament appearance before returning to Division II and the SIAC.
She also represented Nigeria in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, where Nigeria became the first African country to qualify for the quarterfinal round.
Kalu played for the Dream in their regular season finale against the New York Liberty, becoming the first HBCU player to appear in a WNBA game since Andrea Gardner of Howard played for the Washington Mystics during the 2008 season.
