Northwestern State’s Parramore earns first-team all-conference selection

A dynamic scorer with a tough-as-nails ability to get to the rim that can also light it up from beyond the arc makes Candice Parramore a First-Team All-Southland Conference player, the league office announced on Friday. 

Parramore backed up her Newcomer of the Year honor from a season ago with an equally as impressive 2022-23 campaign for Northwestern State, taking her performance up a notch during conference play. 

The Dallas, Texas, native averaged 16.4 points per game during league games, reaching double figures in 13 of the 14 conference games in which she played this year. She had five different 20-point outings and ended the season with a career-best 12 straight games scoring 10 or more points. 

Parramore had consecutive 20-point games for the third time in her career in a pair of NSU home wins against HCU and Lamar. She averaged 22.0 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.5 assists that week making her an easy choice for SLC Player of the Week honors. 

On consecutive Saturday’s during conference play, Parramore set and matched her career-high scoring mark of 26 points against Texas A&M-Commerce and then against New Orleans, both NSU wins. 

Her ability to get to the rim and often times subsequently the free throw line was put on full display in both of those performances. Parramore had her two highest single game free throw totals of career making 13-of-15 against Commerce and 11-of-14 against UNO. She scored 15 points alone in the third quarter of the game against the Privateers. 

She is the best free throw shooter by percentage of any player with more than 50 attempts in conference action with an .824 mark. For the year Parramore has made a total of 98 free throws and is just two makes shy of being the first player in nearly 30 years to make 100 or more free throws in consecutive seasons. Angela Simpson did it in three straight seasons from 1992-95. 

Of the top-rated scorers in conference play she has the highest free-throw percentage and ranks in the top 10 in 3-pointers made per game at 1.9. 

She led the Demons in scoring 13 different times this season and had 18 double-digit efforts in 25 total games played. 

Parramore surpassed the 1,000 career point milestone this season, the 28th player to do so while wearing an NSU jersey, after back-to-back 300-point seasons for the Demons. In two seasons at NSU, Parramore scored over 700 points, averaged 13.7 per game, has the fourth best single-season free throw mark (.892) and will have the best career free throw percentage (.847) in program history. 

Also picked as a preseason first-team player, Parramore is the first NSU women’s basketball player to earn first-team honors since Beatrice Attura following the 2016-17 season. She is also the first player for the NSU women to earn consecutive all-conference honors since Janelle Perez picked up two straight first-team selections from 2014-16.