When faced with a full roster rebuild like new Arizona Women’s Basketball head coach Becky Burke is, the most important things to look for are experience and scoring. Lucky for Burke and the Wildcats, the newest member of the roster has both of those things. On Tuesday, one of the top mid-major portal players, former Cleveland State guard Mickayla Perdue, announced she is transferring to Arizona.
The 5-foot-seven guard and native of Springfield, Ohio is taking advantage of all of her available eligibility, as she enters her sixth season of college basketball next year. Perdue is the reigning Horizon League Player of the Year, averaging 20.0 points, 3.3 assists, and 1.3 steals, while shooting 41.5 percent from the field and 84.5 percent from the charity stripe for the Vikings. She was also the 2023-24 Horizon League Newcomer of the Year and is a two-time first team all-conference selection.
Perdue and Cleveland State actually fell to a Becky Burke-led Buffalo squad in the WNIT Semifinals earlier this month. She finished with 19 points, going 10-11 from the free-throw line. One of Perdue’s best games of the year came against No. 14 Ohio State in the season-opener, where she scored 29 points on 9-20 shooting.
The Ohio native began her career at Toledo in 2020-21, where she appeared in nine games before redshirting the 2021-22 season. She spent the next year at Division II Glenville State, where she helped lead the Pioneers to a DII Final Four.
Mickayla Perdue is the second player transferring to Arizona since Becky Burke’s arrival. She joins former Buffalo guard Lani Cornfield, who spent last season with Burke in New York. She also joins Montaya Dew, the lone holder over from last season’s roster, who underwent surgery to repair her meniscus in March and is rehabbing.