Nasiaah Russell is back and better than ever in leading Audenried by Notre Dame

Article By: Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

City of Basketball Love

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COLLEGEVILLE — Nasiaah Russell remembers the date. She remembers falling awkwardly. She remembers the searing heat that coursed through her lower right leg as she grabbed her knee crying on December 23, 2023, thinking the worst, thinking, “This is it, I’ll never play basketball again.”

She was a big puddle. So, too, was Audenried coach Kevin Slaughter, who watched his budding freshman star go down in a game against Penn Charter just as she was beginning to show what she could do.

Russell suffered a torn ACL in her right knee. The Audenried 6-foot-3 sophomore underwent surgery on February 27, 2024. She required 10 months of rehab. What no one saw were the countless nights she spent with her right leg propped up on a pillow, crying herself to sleep, trying to stifle the sniffles so her family would not hear her. She calls it the “suffering in silence” time.

It is why Sunday meant a little more to Russell than anyone else on the court, in what turned out to be an incredible game, when Audenried outlasted Notre Dame, 74-68, in the City of Basketball Love Winter Classic at Ursinus College.

Russell had the best game of her young high school career, scoring 25 points including a clutch fourth-quarter three-pointer, and grabbing 12 rebounds, sharing game-high scoring honors with her teammate and Rockets’ Penn State-bound senior star Shayla Smith

Russell was chosen MVP of the game.

Audenried’s Nasiaah Russell (above, in December) had the best game of her young career against Notre Dame (Photo by Josh Verlin/CoBL).

This season marks the end of one journey for her and the beginning stages of another.

She was never hurt like that before in my life, and in her head, she said, when you hear everyone else go through it, a torn ACL is a career-ending injury.

“I hadn’t started my career,” Russell said. “I thought I was through. I’ll admit it, I thought, ‘I will never play basketball again.’ I hate that I thought that. 

“It was a scary time. What really hurt me was seeing my teammates on the court last year without me, having fun and winning.” 

The most biting was last March at Liberty High School, when Russell watched from the bench as District 2 champion Scranton Prep ended the Rockets’ deepest run in the PIAA Class 4A state playoffs, 83-50, in the state semifinals. Russell was more distraught than her teammates, because she knows she could have made a difference.

It is why over a year after the injury and closing in on a year after the surgery, she holds back emotion thinking about who helped her and how she recovered.

“I’ll be honest, Shayla, my team, my coaches, my mom, they got me through it, because there were a lot of times I gave up on myself,” Russell admitted. “It’s why I get emotional thinking about it. I am stronger for it. They all see me as something that I am starting to see in myself. If it was not for them, I would not be where I am now.

“I’m the type of person where I bash myself a lot, and I know I shouldn’t. I gave up on myself. I convinced myself to stop. When I stepped back, it’s when I started turning it around.”

Russell is just beginning to blow up. She knows she has to get stronger, but she has great reach, great feet, soft hands, and is incredibly athletic. She may grow another inch or two. If she continues to arc upward, as she is projected to, she will be a Power Five recruit by the time she’s ready to commit. 

“I’ll never forget Nasiaah coming up to me crying after we lost the state playoff game,” Slaughter recalled. “She cried really bad, and I was like, ‘Why, you weren’t even playing?’ She said she could have helped us. When we got serious about her coming back, it was around April, or May. She was going to physical therapy two, three times a week and the doctors told us she is going to grow more.

“October was when Nasiaah was straight. She doesn’t like wearing her knee brace. I think she is a freak of nature. She can be great. But she sometimes thinks too much. When she just plays, she’s great. She has the natural talent. Today is the best she has ever played.”

Russell scored 16 of her game-high 25 in the first quarter on seven of nine shooting, though her most crucial bucket came with 58 seconds left to play, and the Rockets clinging to a 65-63 lead. It was Russell who rose up and flushed a trey to give Audenried some breathing space over the feisty Irish, who saw their undefeated, 16-game winning streak come to an end.

The finish did not, however, come without a fight.

After 10 months of rehab, Russell (above, in December) looks better than ever (Photo by Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Audenried led by as much as 45-21 early in the third quarter. The game was shaping into a mercy rule blow out. Then, shots that fell short or wide began falling in for Notre Dame. The Irish sped Audenried up, forcing nine turnovers in the third quarter and 14 overall in the second half.

Sophomore Riley Davis led Notre Dame with 21, but it was Emma Anthony, a Rutgers lacrosse commit, who began burying threes, four in the fourth quarter to make it a game.

The 24-point deficit is the largest point difference the Irish have faced this season. They could have folded. They did not. Notre Dame coach Terry Mancini certainly has a template to work with if in a rare situation Notre Dame is down big like that again. 

“There is no quit in our team,” Mancini said. “We told the team at halftime to get it down to 10 in the third quarter, and we will make it a game in the fourth, and that is exactly what happened. It shows the character in our team. Audenried is incredible and we knew that. Our priority is the Inter-Ac. We have three league games this week and these games help you.

“I thought we represented ourselves well.”

By Quarter
Notre Dame (16-1): 15 | 6 | 25 | 22 ||  68
Audenried (12-4):  27 | 16  |  12  | 19 ||  74

Scoring
Notre Dame: Riley Davis 21, Emma Anthony 15, Grace Nasr 12, Catie Kelly 8, Maddie DeFronzo 7, Alexandra Gillin 5.

Audenried: Nasiaah Russell 25, Shayla Smith 25, Senaya Parker 13, Reynah Rattliff 6, Jourdyn Searles 5.

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