Counting Down Cal's Top-50 Transfer Athletes: No. 21 Marta Suarez

The transfer portal era in college athletics seems like it’s been with us forever. Likewise, most fans can recall less turbulent times when transfers happened, they simply didn’t look like a stampede to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

We thought it was time to rank the best transfers Cal teams have attracted, most of them in recent seasons but also including a few OGs from yesteryear.

We limited our ranking to transfers from four-year colleges.

Here is the next athlete in our countdown:

21. Marta Suarez

Sport: Basketball

Arrival year at Cal: 2023-24

Previous school: Tennessee (Spent three seasons with the Vols, including one redshirt season, and averaged 4.9 points in 2022-23, her final season at Tennessee)

Contributions at Cal:

— A 6-foot-3 native of Spain, Suarez made an immediate impact at Cal in 2023-24, when she was the team’s second leading scorer at 11.9 points per game and leading rebounder at 6.9 boards per contest.

--- She was one of the main components of the 2023-24 team that won 19 games and earned a postseason berth in in the Women’s Invitation Tournament one year after going 13-17 the year before Suarez arrived.

--- The versatile Suarez was a key factor in Cal’s 2024-25 season, when the Bears reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in six years. That season, she improved her scoring to 12.9 points per game and her rebounding to 7.2 boards per game. She made 40 three-point shots that season.

--- Suarez transferred to TCU for her final season of college basketball, helping the Horned Frogs reach the NCAA tournament quarterfinals in 2026. She averaged 17.1 points and 7.4 rebounds for TCU that season and had 33 points and 10 rebounds in TCU’s victory over Virginia in the third round of the NCAA tournament.

--- Suarez was the first pick of the second round in the 2026 WNBA draft. She was traded to the Golden State Valkyries but failed to make the active roster.

Standout performance: Suarez scored 27 points and was 5-for-9 on three-pointers while leading Cal to a 67-53 road victory over Auburn in the fourth game of the 2023-24 season. That win improved Cal’s record to 4-0 and indicated that the team has postseason potential. It also showed the impact Suarez would have on Cal basketball.

Impact on her team: Suarez’s versatility was one of the main reasons Cal landed postseason berths in both of her seasons at Cal. She was able to post-up on the block, penetrate off the dribble and hit three-pointers as well as rebound.

Previously on our list:

No. 22: Hugo Gonzalez

No. 23: Julia Vander Hoeven

No. 24: Dai Dai Ames

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