The Hidden Gem of Alumni Gym
She doesn’t play in front of five-figure crowds. She’s not a fixture on national television. She doesn’t even have as many Twitter followers as Roger the guinea pig. But she’s scoring more points per game than an entire Division III team. In fact, she’s averaging more points than Sabrina Ionescu and Kaila Charles combined, and she still would be even if she only scored three points in her next game.
Not quite halfway between New York City and Philadelphia lies Rider University, a private school in New Jersey with 4,825 students and one walking, breathing bucket. Stella Johnson is averaging 29.3 points per game, nearly six more points than anyone else in Division I. At her current pace, it will take her less than two months to become the program’s first 2,000-point scorer. That would be more points than there are seats in her home arena, Rider’s Alumni Gymnasium. Her scoring prowess has been an integral part of the team’s 4–2 start.
What makes the sensational senior so hard to guard? It’d be much quicker to list things she can’t do, but here are several skills showcased by the pride of Broncs basketball.
SHOOTING
One of Johnson’s deadliest weapons is her pure shooting stroke. If she maintains her career mark of 37% from three-point range, she’ll finish second in school history, and she is quickly ascending the Rider leaderboard in total three-point makes as well. Sitting at seventh with 141, she’ll need just seven more games at her current pace of two makes per game to crack the top five.
Take a look at the different ways Stella gets her shots up.
Catch-and-shoot jumpers
One reason why Johnson is so prolific behind the arc is that she always stays locked and loaded. Regardless of where the ball is, she is constantly ready to square up and launch.
Pull-up jumpers
Of course, Stella doesn’t need her teammates to set her up. The mark of a good shooter is the ability to consistently hit open shots; the mark of a great shooter is the ability to create an open shot where there isn’t one.
In-the-gym range
After the Division I men’s three-point line was moved back to the FIBA distance over the offseason, many began calling for the women’s rules committee to follow suit. If that change were to suddenly happen today, well, Stella probably wouldn’t care. She can knock it down from deep:
Like, really deep:
HANDLES
Putting a basketball in Stella Johnson’s hands is like putting a paintbrush in Picasso’s — the artistry of her handles is a sight to behold. That craftiness gives defenders fits, often leaving them with no option but to foul. Johnson leads Division I with 12 free throw attempts per game, and at 86% from the stripe, she converts 10.3 of them. That’s two more free throw makes per game than anyone attempted last season, and it would be the most in the history of the Her Hoop Stats database across all three divisions.
Let’s look at what makes Stella so tough to match up with one-on-one.
Crossover
When she sees an opportunity, Stella transforms that paintbrush into a weapon with a criminal crossover. Check out her go-to move:
Finishing
Stella’s bag of tricks features a collection of fancy finishes as well. The floater, the scoop, the reverse — her creativity in the paint is as elegant as it gets:
MOVING OFF THE BALL
Stella’s shooting and ball-handling are special, but what really sets her apart from other dynamic scorers is how she moves without the ball. The above video of her catch-and-shoot jump shots doubles as a display of her ability to come off screens, but what other types of cuts does she excel at?
Backdoor cuts
The natural instinct of opponents is to deny her the ball. What’s a painter without her paintbrush?
Defenses quickly learn, however, that Stella can finger paint. Watch what happens when defenders try to prevent passes to her on the perimeter:
Iverson cuts
Rider head coach Lynn Milligan likes to bring Stella off of Iverson cuts to get her isolated with the ball on the wing. It’s only fitting for a player that conjures shades of the cut’s namesake.
The 5-foot-10 guard can even post up!
Despite the video-game scoring numbers Stella puts up, perhaps the most impressive element of her game is her incessant motor. It takes a rare commitment to expend enormous energy putting the ball in the hoop for 35 minutes a game without taking a possession off on defense. From crashing the offensive glass to getting in passing lanes on defense, Stella makes winning plays in every facet of the game.
Never mind the fact that she’s in the top 20 in Division I in steals per game with 3.2, or that she’s averaging more blocks per game than Maryland star center Shakira Austin. Never mind that in her last game she came up just one rebound and one assist shy of a triple-double, and added five steals, two blocks and only one turnover. Never mind all that.
Just watch her.
Watch her go after the offensive rebound, pull it back out, and then draw a world of attention and find her teammate for a layup. Then watch her chase her own miss and put it back in. Her defenders fall asleep on the boxout, but you won’t catch Stella napping. Then watch her score before the scoreboard on the screen can finish loading— her engine is revved from the tip.
Want some more of Stella wanting it more? How about these two tenacious blocks after some lockdown on-ball defense? She even demonstrates her savvy basketball I.Q. in the second clip by forcing Shay Hagans to drive baseline with her left hand.
Or how about this hustle after a miss? While many other elite scorers hang their head after missing a shot, Stella never stops working. Watch the consummate competitor stick with the play, chase down Anna Camden for the steal and take it in to draw the foul.
Stella Johnson may not be SportsCenter’s lead story any time soon. She isn’t even on Google’s first page of results for Stella Johnson. But she should be. When she next takes the floor on Saturday at Georgetown, make no mistake about it: the best player on the court won’t hail from the home team. Rider already has a win over one Big East foe in Xavier, and a road win over Big Ten opponent Penn State to boot. If the Hoyas want to avoid being the next major-conference victim, they’ll have to contain one of the brightest standouts in the sport. So learn the name of the MAAC superstar from the Garden State. It’s Stella Johnson.
If you like this content, please support our work at Her Hoop Stats by subscribing for just $20 a year. All stats are compiled from Her Hoop Stats and gobroncs.com and reflect games through Tuesday, December 10.
