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Transfer Bendu Yeaney gets waiver, can play for Arizona Wildcats women's basketball team

Arizona's hopes for a first outright Pac-12 women's basketball title received a boost with the NCAA granting transfer Bendu Yeaney immediate eligibility for the 2020-21 season.

A 5-foot-10 junior guard who started 69 games in three years at Indiana, Yeaney will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with Arizona. She played in just six games for the Hoosiers in the 2019-20 season after returning from an Achilles injury at the end of the previous season.

Yeaney entered the transfer portal at the end of January, citing a desire to be closer to her Oregon home.

As a sophomore in the 2018-19 season, Yeaney averaged 9.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game for the Hoosiers.

Yeaney and graduate transfer Trinity Baptiste, the reigning ACC Sixth Player of the Year, lend experience to an Arizona team that went 24-7 a season ago, was ranked No. 12 and appeared headed for a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament before the event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Arizona has not reached the NCAA tournament since 2005 but returns All-American Aari McDonald along with its two other leading scorers, Cate Reese and Sam Thomas.