Ontario Player of the Week March 19 – March 25

This week’s Ontario Player of the Week goes to one of the most well-decorated basketball players to come out of Canada, in Hamilton’s own and University of Connecticut guard Kia Nurse.

Nurse, a 6’0” point guard, is playing in her final season of collegiate basketball at Connecticut. In her OBA days she led Hamilton Transway to seven consecutive provincial club championships. In high school at St. Thomas More Catholic School in Hamilton, Nurse helped lead her team to three consecutive OFSAA high school championships in 2011, 2012 and 2013. During her high school career, she was invited to training camp for Canada Basketball’s national team to soak it all in and start the learning process for the future, but she ended up playing well enough in the camp to earn a spot on the senior women’s national team roster.

After her graduation from high school, Nurse received over 50 offers from various schools across Canada and the United States to play basketball. After careful consideration, Nurse narrowed her list down to Connecticut, Indiana, Penn State and Kentucky. In the end, she ended up choosing Connecticut, and after signing her letter of intent, she said that she had recorded a video when she was in Grade Seven saying she had a goal of playing for Connecticut when she got older.

Nurse has represented Canada on multiple occasions throughout her young career, most notably at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, where Nurse was the catalyst with 33 points for Canada winning 81-73 in the gold medal game over the United States. Nurse also won MVP and led Canada to gold in the 2015 FIBA Americas Women’s Championship, a qualifying event for the Olympics.

Nurse has had a prolific career at Connecticut with multiple conference all-star team nominations along with this year being named to the Co-SIDA Academic All-America Third Team. She was also named a finalist for the Nancy Lieberman Award this year, which is awarded to the nation’s top point guard.

Nurse is currently in the NCAA Tournament with her Huskies’ teammates as they are continuing their pursuit of a perfect season, currently sitting at 35-0 and have moved onto the Elite 8 of the tournament, taking on the #2 seed in their region South Carolina on March 26 for a birth in the Final Four. Check out Kia’s Tournament Playlist from ESPN.

Congratulations Kia and tune in next week for another edition of the Ontario Player of the Week!