How 3 former NIC-10 stars from Rockford fared in the NCAA tournament
Three former NIC-10 stars from Rockford are scholarship players on college basketball teams that reached the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. Here is how they and their teams fared during the opening weekend and during the season:
Jordan King, Marquette
King did everything well except what she is best known for in No. 9 seed Marquette’s 67-65 overtime loss to No. 8 seed South Florida in the opening round of the women’s tournament. King had 16 points, eight rebounds, five steals and three assists, but the senior guard from Hononegah who has scored more points than any NIC-10 player in history shot 4-for-21.
King led Marquette in scoring, assists, steals, 3-point shooting and minutes played this year. She joined Aquin’s Sophie Brunner and Belvidere’s Amanda Levens (both at Arizona State) as the only Rockford-area players to ever make first-team all-conference in a Power 5 conference (although Harlem’s Aminata Yanni was once honorable mention in the Big Ten at Illinois). She was fifth in the Big East in assists (3.9) and seventh in scoring (16.3).
More:Hononegah grad and NIC-10 leading scorer is rising to challenge at Marquette
King has one more year of eligibility due to the COVID-shortened season and plans to take it. With 1,378 career points and 479 assists, she could break the area Division I records held by former Rockford Lutheran and NIU star Stephanie Raymond (1,791 points, 497 assists).
Brenden Moss, Kent State
The former Jefferson star has not played this year. He is a red-shirt freshman for the Golden Flashes (28-6, 15-3), who tied the 2008 team for the most wins in the program’s 109-year history, two wins shy of the record set in 2002. Kent State, the MAC champions, were a No. 13 seed who lost 71-60 in the first-round to No. 4 seed Indiana.
Moss, a 6-4 guard, led Jefferson in scoring with 12.9 points as a senior two years ago and then spent a year at Minnesota Prep, a post-grad prep school, where he grew another couple of inches. When Kent State signed him, KSU coach Rob Senderoff said: "Brenden is an elite offensive player. He has great size and impacts the game in a lot of ways. He is a tremendous shooter, but he is more than that. He can really score the basketball, pass and rebound. I think he has got a chance to be a really special player here.”
More:This Boylan grad refused to shoot the 3. Now, she's NCAA tourney-bound and can't stop
Peyton Kennedy, St. Louis University
Kennedy, a 5-11 junior forward from Boylan, was the first player off the bench for St. Louis in a 95-50 loss to No. 4 seed Tennessee. Kennedy had two points and two rebounds before fouling out.
She averaged 9.8 points and 4.7 rebounds and shot 47 percent to help St. Louis reach the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. She doubled her scoring average to 14.4 points in the final 12 games before the tournament to help the Billikens go 11-1 after starting the season 6-16.
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: How 3 former Rockford players performed in the NCAA tournament
