SUNO’s Lady Knights get first-ever NAIA tourney win

Milestone win part of record-breaking season for New Orleans HBCU

The seventh-seeded SUNO Lady Knights on March 18 won its first-ever game at the NAIA Division I Women’s Basketball National Championship by upsetting No. 2-seed Vanguard (Calif.) 84-56 in the final Day One game in Independence, Mo.

The Lady Knights entered the championship 0-2 after two previous trips. The win allowed the team to advance where they played and lost, unfortunately, to No. 3 Montana State-Northern.

However, the victory of Vanguard added another history-making achievement to the Lady Knights’ 2014-2015 season.

The team set school records for the most conference victories (13), and has claimed both the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC) regular-season and tournament championships in the same season for the first time.

In addition, Lady Knights Coach Elston King has been named GCAC Coach of the Year, and Lady Knight senior guard/forward Brandy Broome has been named GCAC Player of the Year. King led the Lady Knights to their first GCAC Championship since 2000, with a 19-4 record, including a 13-1 record in the GCAC.

Broome led the conference in scoring (18.6 points per game), assists and steals. An eight-time GCAC Player of the Week this season, Broome also finished second in the conference in rebounding and blocked shots. In addition, she led the nation in steals, averaging 6.27 per game. In her final regular season home game, she posted the first quadruple-double (23 points, 16 rebounds, 12 assists and 11 steals) in NAIA Division I in a decade.

SUNO has also had three players named to the All-GCAC Women’s Basketball Team. Broome was named to the first team, and junior forward Rayvin Miller and senior forward Marquetta Stokes were named to the second team.

SUNO is a member of the Southern University System and is New Orleans’ only public Black institution of higher learning.

This article originally published in the March 30, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.