After missing the Phoenix Mercury’s entire season, kia nurse is back and leading Canada to a strong start in the women’s World Cup.
Kia Nurse : fiba world cup | Injury | Stats | Elite | Wnba
Kia Nurse is a Canadian basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 22, 1996 Hamilton, Ontario |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Listed height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Listed weight | 168 lb (76 kg) |
She is also a basketball pundit featured on The Sports Network.
Kia Nurse began playing basketball at the age of four, and by the time she was seven years old, she was playing in a competitive league. Nurse attended St.Vincent de Paul Elementary School.
Nurse played basketball while attending St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario.
During her playing career, she helped the team win three consecutive OFSAA high school championships in 2011, 2012 and 2013. She played for the Hamilton Transway Club team which won seven consecutive provincial championships.
Fiba world cup
The early-August day Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison, Kia Nurse and her Phoenix Mercury teammates watched the heart-wrenching court proceedings play out on their phones in their locker-room.
The Mercury hosted the Connecticut Sun later that day, and the two teams locked arms at centre court pre-game for a tearful 42 seconds of silence — a nod to Griner’s Phoenix jersey number.
“It was really hard to play that game. I don’t know how my teammates did it. It was really hard to play an entire season without her,” Nurse said.
Nurse fought back tears on Monday as she recalled the darkest days of “a hell on earth” season for the Mercury.
“BG is the best of the best when it comes to human beings,” she said of Griner, an eight-time WNBA all-star, who was convicted of drug possession and smuggling after less than a gram of cannabis oil was found in her luggage.
“It was a lot this season to not have her on the court, to not have her spirit, her energy around and the fact that she’s not home yet is disheartening.
We did our best as a team to make sure that her story was told, to make sure that her name was upfront as much as possible but you go to practice and you wonder what she’s doing.”
The Mercury continued Griner’s BG Heart and Sole Shoe Drive in her absence, visiting all 12 WNBA markets.
Kia nurse Injury
Kia Nurse has suffered a torn ACL in her right knee and will miss the remainder of the 2021 WNBA season, the Phoenix Mercury announced Friday.
Nurse suffered the injury in Game 4 of the Mercury’s semifinal series against the Las Vegas Aces. She was unable to put weight on her knee and had to be helped off the court.
Without Nurse, the Mercury lost Game 4 to the Aces by a final score of 93-76.
Nurse was the Mercury’s fourth-leading scorer during the regular season with an average of 9.5 points per game on .359/.353/.790 shooting splits. She also posted 3.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.
Prior to her injury, Nurse had scored in double figures in three of the Mercury’s five postseason games.
Tied at 2-2, the Mercury will face the Aces in Game 5 on Friday. The winner will take on the Chicago Sky in the WNBA Finals, which begin on Sunday.
Kia nurse stats
At the 2018 WNBA draft, Nurse was drafted by the New York Liberty in the first round, as the tenth overall pick.
Nurse would join the Liberty alongside players such as Tina Charles and Epiphanny Prince.
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | TO | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | New York | 34 | 7 | 22.8 | .402 | .294 | .870 | 2.4 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 9.1 |
| 2019 | New York | 34 | 34 | 29.4 | .393 | .353 | .872 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 13.7 |
| 2020 | New York | 21 | 18 | 27.5 | .273 | .238 | .864 | 2.9 | 2.3 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 2.2 | 12.2 |
| 2021 | Phoenix | 32 | 32 | 26.1 | .359 | .353 | .790 | 3.5 | 1.8 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 9.5 |
| Career | 4 years, 2 teams | 121 | 91 | 26.3 | .361 | .316 | .856 | 2.8 | 2.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 11.0 |
Nurse made her WNBA debut on May 20, 2018, scoring 17 points in an eventual 80–76 loss to the Chicago Sky.
In June 2018, Nurse scored 34 points, a season-high amongst WNBA rookies, in the Liberty’s 87–81 overtime victory over the Indiana Fever.
In July 2019, Nurse was named as a starter for the WNBA All-Star Game for the first time in her career.
Her selection made her just the third Canadian to play in the All-Star Game. Nurse was selected by and joined Team Delle Donne for the game.
Nurse also took part in the Three-Point Contest, but lost in the first round.
Elite
When Kia and Tamika Nurse were growing up, U.S. college basketball coaches rarely ventured north of the border to scout — and even less so to scout girls. Travelling teams for top female players were scarce.
Originally called Canada Drive — it’s now Blue Star Ontario — it gave Kia, Tamika and a talented collection of other Canadian girls the opportunity to be seen by top U.S. programs.
Tamika went on to play at Oregon and Bowling Green. Kia, nine years her sister’s junior, starred at Connecticut.
Now, Kia Nurse wants other young girls to have the same opportunity.
The 22-year-old from Hamilton recently announced the formation of Kia Nurse Elite, her own Nike-backed AAU program that will play on the Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) circuit in the U.S. starting this summer.
“It’s something we’ve talked about for a really long time, me and my family,” Nurse said. “(Canada Drive) was a big part of my ability, and a lot of my teammates’ ability to be recruited and be seen by schools in the states, to play down there.
So me and my family talked about what I wanted to do with my legacy, and how I could help build a program.”
Wnba
The 25-year-old from Hamilton, Ont., averaged 9.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last season, her first with Phoenix after a trade with the New York Liberty, where Nurse had played for three years.
“In 2021, Kia Nurse wnba brought the exact toughness, shooting and high basketball IQ we hoped for when acquiring her via trade,” Mercury GM Jim Pitman said in a media release. “Losing her to injury last October certainly hampered our efforts in the Finals, and we know it hurt Kia not to be able to help her team, but the way she has worked and rehabbed this offseason solidifies for us that she is the kind of person and player we want to continue as a part of the Mercury family, and we are excited to welcome her back for 2022.”
Nurse is recovering from surgery on her right knee after tearing her ACL during Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces in October.
The 2019 All-Star wing is expected to return to action during this upcoming season, according to the team.
Nurse, a 6-foot guard, tore her right ACL in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces last season. She’s been been back on the court for a little while now, but just started gradually incorporating more movement and changes of direction. Last week she attempted a layup again for the first time, recreating the shot she injured the knee on.
“A lot of it’s kind of getting over the mental hump of you can do this or you can jump back on a box with your ACL leg,” Nurse told The Courant on Thursday.
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