Ball (and puck) in the family
Nurse siblings rising sports stars
As descendants of a prominent Canadian sports family, it wasn’t a surprise when siblings Kia and Darnell Nurse rose to compete at the collegiate and professional levels. They had, after all, spent their lives challenging each other on the basketball court, each pushing to be better than the other.
After directing the No. 1 U Conn women to an 8373 victory over sixthranked Maryland on Monday night at the Garden, Kia described what growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, in such a sportscentric family meant.
“Everything we did was always competitive,” she said. “It was either a oneonone game, or a shooting game. The loser had to do the dishes. Darnell was a streakshooter, so he usually got the better of me, in the shooting games. But, in the oneonone games, I beat him.”
Kia, 19, a point guard, won a gold medal with Canada at the 2015 Pan Am Games. Darnell, 20, is a rookie defenseman for the Edmonton Oilers. Their older sister, Tamika, 28, was a guard at Oregon and Bowling Green. Their father, Richard, an insurance salesman, is a former wide receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League. Richard’s sister, Raquel, is married to retired NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb.
Kia said with Darnell’s ascension to the NHL, she has been “able to get a lot of great advice,” and for that, she is grateful. Despite the knowledge Kia has gained hoop skills from being Darnell’s sister, she now believes she has become more adept at basketball than her brother, and suspects he knows that, too.
“I knew he knew [that I could beat him] when he started wanting to be on my team when we would have twoontwo games,” she said. “This was about the same time that he would only play me in the shooting games because he didn’t want to play me in those oneonone games anymore.”
When it came time to select their respective games, Darnell was drawn to football and basketball but settled on hockey, Canada’s game. He rose through the junior leagues to become the Oilers’ first pick in the 2013 NHL draft, taken seventh overall. He played two NHL games last season and has participated in 30 this season, putting up two goals (one against the Rangers on Dec. 11) and five assists.
Earlier this week, the 6foot4, 213pounder fought with the Kings’ Milan Lucic, who’s 63, 233 pounds and a renowned heavy hitter.
“Good for him,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “He’s in the NHL. He’s standing his ground against a big tough guy.”
Kia’s Huskies are riding a 48game winning streak and have won 95 of their last 96. The 6foot sophomore has a career scoring average of 10.2 points per game.
It “was preordained that she would play basketball,” her father, Richard, told The Post. “All of the women in our family play basketball.”