By R.L. Bynum
Former North Carolina center Maria Gakdeng signed a player-development contract with the WNBA’s Toronto Tempo on Saturday.
For Gakdeng, the move represents her second chance at an active WNBA roster spot since going unselected in the 2025 draft. She joined the Atlanta Dream on a training camp contract that April, only to be waived that May before the regular season began.
The expansion franchise has signed a few players to such deals because it has been without several regulars for extended stretches. The Tempo have already converted two of their developmental signings, Ornella Bankole and Zaay Green, to regular contracts this month because of what the team called roster hardships, as forwards Nyara Sabally and Maria Conde have each missed time with calf injuries.
Guard Julie Allemand has also been sidelined, and Brittney Sykes and Aneesah Morrow were ruled out for the remainder of the season with a foot injury and a knee injury, respectively.
In 2025, Gakdeng signed with KSC Szekszárd of the Hungarian A Division and played for the South Sudan women’s national team during the 2025 Women’s Afrobasket. She later helped South Sudan qualify for the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup, continuing a commitment to the program even as her club obligations pulled her across two continents.
This past May, she joined the Greensboro Groove of the newly formed UpShot League for its inaugural season before an injury ended her season.
Gakdeng began her college career with two seasons at Boston College, where she set a program single-season record with 73 blocks as a freshman in 2021–22 and earned a spot on the league’s All-Freshman Team.
After averaging 11.3 points and 6.5 rebounds as a sophomore, she transferred to UNC for the 2023–24 season. Gakdeng started 65 of 66 games across two seasons in Chapel Hill, leading the ACC in field-goal percentage (62.6%) as a junior and helping North Carolina earn a No. 3 in the 2025 NCAA tournament.
She finished her senior season averaging 10.8 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game, numbers that earned her second-team All-ACC honors and capped a career line of 10.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks across 132 games at the two schools.
Whether Gakdeng sees the floor for Toronto in the season’s final three games will likely depend on how the Tempo’s frontcourt injuries progress. The team, playing its first season as the WNBA’s lone Canadian franchise, entered the week with a losing record and had already been eliminated from playoff contention, conditions that have opened the door for players such as Gakdeng to get a look they might not have found on a healthier roster.
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Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
