SHU Freshman Ny’Ceara Pryor Plays Her Way Into National Recognition

While all eyes are on the UConn women’s basketball team and their fate for the NCAA tournament, there’s two players in the state who are playing their way into the national conversation too and they’re not from UConn.

Earlier this week we introduced you to Jenna Clark from Yale, one of the Top 10 Finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, which goes to the top point guard in the country.

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On the other side of the ball, Sacred Heart University freshman Ny’Ceara Pryor earned recognition as a Top 10 Finalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year.

Pryor leads the Pioneers in steals, rebounds, points and assists. She also leads the team as a captain, a rarity for a freshman, which she earned just four games into the season.

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The Baltimore, Maryland, native said she’s proud to represent her city and her university in the national conversation alongside Power 5 schools, but she’s even more proud to keep proving that at 5-foot-3, she can play DI basketball.

“Growing up, people was like, 'you're too little, you're not going to be able to play at the DI level,'” Pryor said. “It just fuels me every day to want to get better and prove everybody wrong.”

“I think she takes that and it marinates a little bit and she's like, 'I’m gonna show you,'” said SHU women’s basketball coach Jessica Mannetti. “When you're a little undersized and people don't take you seriously, and you got to prove night in and night out what you can do, that can be really wearing and it never looks like it wears her down, it looks like it wakes her up.”