Cleveland State has landed explosive 5-8 guard Jada Leonard through the transfer portal, according to On3’s Talia Goodman.
Though Leonard was at Bryant this past season, she missed the entire campaign, thanks to an unspecified knee injury. However, what she did prior to that in two years at Saint Peter’s offers plenty of promise for anyone connected to the Vikings program.
In 2023-24, Leonard led the Peacocks in scoring (12.1), assists (2.3), and steals (2.1), with the latter number ranking among the top 100 players nationally. She scored a career-best 25 points against Hampton on December 21, 2023, and produced 24 tallies on two other occasions, though Leonard’s best all-around effort might have been her most recent. In a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament loss to Quinnipiac on March 12, 2024, she scored 15 times, while adding nine rebounds, four assists, and four steals.
As a freshman, she earned MAAC All-Rookie Team recognition from the league’s coaches, thanks to 10.5 points and 4.0 rebounds per game as an every-night starter.
Leonard certainly has less size than another recent CSU commit, Ayisse Magassa, but a common thread between the two is the way they can defend the perimeter – a frequent lament of head coach Chris Kielsmeier last season. Given the opportunity to reconstruct nearly an entire roster, it seems that the Vikings’ staff is intent on correcting the previous iteration’s deficiencies, which also included depth.
Though she’s a credible three-point threat, offensively, she’s at her best when putting the ball on the floor, running in transition, and earning trips to the free throw line.
If there’s a concern with Leonard, it’s ball security. She averaged 3.7 and 3.6 giveaways per game during her two seasons at SPU, numbers that ranked near the bottom of Division I. Within those averages were a couple of mind-blowing single-game turnover counts, including ten against Manhattan and nine versus Niagara’s famous Hurricane Havoc pressure.
Of course, turnovers can often be a team statistic, assigned to individuals out of convenience.
In stark contrast to Saint Peter’s men’s team, which famously went on an Elite Eight run in 2022, the Peacock women were abysmal during Leonard’s time in Jersey City. In fact, they went 0-30 during her freshman season (making the MAAC all-rookie team nod look that much more impressive).
Leonard and the Peacocks finally snapped what had become a 32-game skid, touching three different seasons, with a 61-57 win over former Viking Meghan Kenefick and Central Connecticut State on November 13, 2023. SPU was certainly improved in that 2023-24 season, though a 7-23 overall record still offered little reason for optimism.
Then came the ill-fated year of rehab at Bryant, though notably, one of her Bulldogs teammates was guard Breezie Williams, who recently took her 9.8 points per game to Wright State, via the portal. Undoubtedly, the two Vikings-Raiders meetings during the 2025-26 season, where two former teammates (each playing for a third different school) will square off, presents a uniquely modern college basketball trope.
Leonard is from The Bronx, NY, and attended Monsignor Scanlan High School, where she topped 1,000 career points, was a first-team all-state selection, and became president of the English National Honor Society.
Though Cleveland State still has some distance to cover before finalizing its roster for the fall, the Vikings now have what could be a highly-effective starting backcourt – pairing Leonard with Colbi Maples certainly seems like a possibility – and can at least throw a credible rotation on the floor at just about every position.
