Moran revives women’s basketball team
One dribble, shoot. Swish.
One dribble, shoot. Swish.
Time after time during a shooting drill, NDSU women’s basketball player Emily Moran buries shot after shot, putting on a clinic about how to knock down jump shots.
Moran has been taking that clinic from the practice floor to the bright lights at the Bison Sports Arena over the past two weeks.
After averaging 22.5 points per game in two contests last week, Moran was named Division I Independent Player of the Week, but it took the junior a while to find her groove in her first season at NDSU.
Moran transferred to NDSU after two seasons at Northeast Community College (Neb.).
During her time at NCC, she averaged 16.9 points per game and was named to the all-conference and all-region teams in both seasons.
However, through the first 13 games this year, Moran was averaging just 3.9 points per game.
During her struggles, Moran was forced to play point guard in the Bison offense due to injuries in the Bison backcourt.
“That was not what we brought her here for, but because of the situation we were in, we felt that with her ball handling skills and with her experience she could give us some help there, which she did,” NDSU coach Amy Ruley said.
In December, senior point guard Amanda Girodat returned from injury and Moran moved to backup point guard.
After spending some time relieving for Girodat, Ruley decided to switch things up and insert Moran into the starting lineup as the shooting guard four games ago.
Since then, Moran has averaged over 18 points per game and has added a lot of quickness to the Bison lineup. Moreover, the team is 4-0 over that span.
“We’ve seen her in the last couple weeks just blow by people in for layups, where initially we were yelling, ‘No numbers!’” Ruley said in reference to Moran being free from defenders. “By the time she got to the basket it was her by herself.”
Moran’s quickness and ability to get to the basket have been helpful to the Bison, but not anywhere near as jaw dropping as the range she shows from 3-point line.
Listed at just 5-foot-7, Moran is able to step back from the three-point line and still knock down the shot.
“My freshman year at Northeast I just started shooting them long range and ever since then that’s how I practice them,” Moran said.
Moran’s confidence in her ability to shoot the ball has become evident over the last four games as she has hit 12 three’s over that stretch. Her confidence has been noticed by her teammates.
“She plays with a lot of confidence and we feed off of people like that,” Girodat said.
While the team feeds off of her confidence, as long as she shoots the way she has been over the last two weeks they will continue to feed her the ball.