Former Sooner star Courtney Paris will make her WNBA debut Saturday when her Sacramento Monarchs take on the Seattle Storm in the season opener.

The former All-American and National Player of the Year was selected seventh by the Monarchs in April’s WNBA Draft. She averaged 27.4 points, 18.9 rebounds, 5 blocks and 2.5 assists during her senior season at OU, and recorded an NCAA record 112 double-doubles.

Paris grew up attending Piedmont and Modesto Christian high schools in southern California, less than 100 miles away from the Monarchs’ arena.

Although she was considered the most dominant college player last year, Paris said she’s unsure how much action she’ll see in her professional debut.

“I don’t think I’ll start, but whenever I’m in there I’ll try to do the best I can,” Paris said Tuesday from the Monarchs’ practice facility. “If we played our game today, I probably wouldn’t be ready for it.”

Paris said the speed of the professional game and the rapid transition from college to the WNBA has been hard to manage.

“It’s kind of the same transition coming from high school to college,” she said. “Only in college, you get there in the summer and meet all your teammates and lift and workout, and then you have a month of practice and start playing games. Here, you get here, start playing games and then your third week they start cutting people. It’s a big transition in a little amount of time. The speed of the game is also a lot faster because the shot clock’s only 24 seconds”

Although she plans on settling down in California for the time being, Paris said she wouldn’t forget about her Oklahoma connections.

“I’d like to come back [to Oklahoma] as often as I can, but you never know when you’re gonna have a day off,” she said. “But, I have to come back cause my hair lady’s down there.”