A mix of size, scoring ability and multiple all-conference and all-American honors make up the latest group of signees for Northwestern State women’s basketball.
Fourth-year head coach Anna Nimz announced the addition of four transfers and one incoming freshman on Friday to add to the growing list of newcomers for the upcoming 2023-24 season.
Three of the players making their way to Natchitoches played their prep ball in the New England area before embarking on their junior college journeys – Jordan Brown (Plainsboro, N.J.), Niaisya Ervin (Newark, N.J.) and Nicole Parks (Fall River, Mass.).
Brown averaged 20.2 points and earned Colonial Valley Conference First-Team honor as a senior in high school before going to Odessa College. After appearing in 30 games her freshman season she transferred to South Plains College where she made 22 starts, helping the Lady Texans to as high as a No. 3 ranking in the NJCAA Division I rankings, win the NJCAA Region V title and make the quarterfinals of the national tournament during the 2020-21 season.
She averaged 9.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.2 assists, scoring in double figures 12 times including a career-high 14-point outing against Frank Phillips College.
Brown’s fellow new Demon from the Garden State, Niaisya Ervin, was an all-conference player for each of her junior college stops out of high school.
Ervin earned a Second-Team All-Southern Conference honor at Miami Dade in her freshman season where she made 17 starts across 29 appearances, shooting 45 percent from the field and averaging 7.2 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.
The 5-foot-10 guard upped her production after moving on to Three Rivers College in Missouri where she earned a Second-Team All-MCCAC honor a year ago with 7.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game.
She reached double digits on 10 different occasions including to separate streaks of three or more straight games with 10+ points, helping the team to an at-large bid to the NJCAA National Tournament.
A transfer from Colgate, Nicole Parks makes her way to NSU after one season as a Raider where she appeared in 17 games in her rookie year. She scored a season-high 14 points on a 7-for-7 shooting performance against Lafayette on Jan. 28 and grabbed a season-high nine rebounds against Oswego State on December 17.
The 6-footer scored 1,000 points in her prep career at St. George’s School and was named a New England Prep School Athletic Council All-Conference player, NEPSAC Class B All-Star and earned an Independent School League Council All-League award as a senior.
Another east coast product that will make her way to NSU, originally from Miami, is two-time all-American scoring guard Andrea Torres.
Torres led her Palm Beach State squad in scoring in each of the past two seasons with a 16.1 per game clip a year ago, shooting better than 40 percent from the field and from beyond the arc for the season. She had 20 or more points in six of the first seven games in the month of January and reached double figures in all but three games on the year with eight total 20-point games.
Her effort helped the Panthers win their first NJCAA Region VIII Division II title in program history and the first title for any sport in school history.
As a freshman, Torres earned her first all-American honor by averaging 21.8 points per game with 10 games of more than 20 points, three with more than 30 including a career-best 51-point outburst against Miami Prep on Jan. 22, 2022.
Torres went 22-for-33 from the field in the game and 4-for-9 from beyond the arc, outscoring Miami Prep in the second half 26-25 on her own.
One of just two true freshmen in this year’s class for Nimz, international post presence Ane Astarloa adds more depth around the basket for the Demons entering the 23-24 season.
The 6-foot-3 center hails from Berriz in Northern Spain where she prepped at nearby Fray Juan de Zumarraga. She will be one of three international players on the team, joining fellow European, sophomore Ivona Miljanic and Australian Sharna Ayres.
