Hofstra's Shante Evans: The latest greatest player you haven’t yet seen

Hofstra's Shante Evans has been named to the midseason Wooden Award and Naismith Award watch lists after leading the program to new heights. (Photo Courtesy Hofstra University.)

Call it a quiet riot.

Shante Evans may just be the best player in women’s college basketball you have yet to see -- unless, of course, you are one of the relative handful of fans who faithfully follow the Hofstra Pride.

But even if you haven't seen Evans play, you've most likely heard of her. Evans, one of the elite players in the country, is featured on every list of prospective All-Americans, as well as on the midseasons watch lists for two of the most prestitigious college basketball honors in the nation -- the Wooden and the Naismith awards.

Though her natural position is at forward, Evans, now in her junior season, starts at center for the Pride -- at 6-foot-even, the tallest player in her team's starting five. (Sophomore forward/center McKenzie Kudron, 6-3, is sitting out this year while regaining her NCAA eligibility after transferring from Vermont to Hofstra at the end of last season; 6-2 center Marie Malone, a senior, still comes mainly off the bench for 5.4 points per game after suffering a season-ending injury last year.)

Last season, as a sophomore, Evans, the first soph in program history to reach and exceed the 1,000-career point mark, was named to  Colonial Athletic Association First Team after being honored as CAA Player of the Week on four occasions. Also named as an Associated Press All-American (the first in program history to be so honored), Evans ranked 13th in the nation last year in rebounding, 16th in double-doubles and 31st in scoring, and already ranks among the all-time top-10 in rebounding in the Hofstra record books, finishing last season with 665 career rebounds to her credit.

This season, Evans has taken her game to an even higher level.  She hits 50 percent from the field, 73 percent from the line, and averages a double-double, of 18.6 points and 10 rebounds per game -- both team-highs by a wide margin.

Still not tuned in? Hofstra. That’s on Long Island, N.Y.

Okay, so here’s what her coach, Krista Kilburn-Stevesky has to say about the tradition of Pride excellence in the Colonial Athletic Association she is trying to build, with Evans at its core.

“We have been building this for awhile,” she said, freely admitting that though her team is well on its way, it is not yet where she aims for it to be. “There were great players here before, there was a great group I inherited, but this is the foundation. ... When you think of traditions, you need a starting point. That’s us."

“Obviously, you get that one player," she said of Evans. "When we were building, when you think about it, you have to believe and we believe."

Having a 6-0 center may be unconventional, but then so is this particular player.

“Before this, we were like everyone else, you needed a 6-5, 6-3 in the middle,” said Kilburn-Stevesky. “She kinda took that thinking away.  I never questioned whether she could play center. When you got it, you got it.”

Evans, who hails from West Chester, Pa.'s Henderson High, may appear to be one of those suddenly developed players, who emerge out of nowhere in women’s basketball into the limelight of national prominence. Though Evans, the first player in her school's history -- male or female -- to score more than 2,000 career points, finishing her prep career with 2,169, and did make the All-Pennsylvania first team as a high school senior, she was ranked just No. 59 in the Class of 2009 by Hoopgurlz. By the standards of many of her fellow finalists on the collegiate postseason awards watch lists, her high school resume seems filled with "almosts" and "also-rans": She led her Henderson High team not to the state championship, but to its first-ever appearance in the state tournament, to a record of 27-7, not an undefeated one. She was a McDonald's All-American nominee, but was not ultimately named to the High School All-American Team.

Shante Evans shoots 50 percent from the field and 73 percent from the line, leading the Hofstra Pride with a double-double average of 18.6 points and 10 rebounds per game. She has notched 11 double-doubles in her last 15 outings.

But her raw talent did not go overlooked. Many Big East schools wanted Evans, who combines classroom slills with court skills.  So did the Big Ten's Penn State.

How, then, did Evans wind up at Hofstra?

“We got her to answer the phone,” Kilburn-Stevesky said. Apparently, Evans did not accept all calls.

“We had been excited about building this program,” Kilburn-Stevesky added. “She shared the vision, then she comes in and takes us to another level.

“You know, I love to brag about my kids,” said Kilburn-Stevesky, who makes a point of turning every road trip an adventure, taking in local sites and experiencing regional cuisines, and not always fixating on the game.

“My kids are first-class,” Kilburn-Stevesky said. “We have discussions. A lot lately have been to focus on what is the reason we are here on this Earth.

“That’s my personality, I know what I was set on earth to do. But it would be pretty empty if it was only about basketball.”

Evans evidently shares all these passions. She has her mind sent on using her history degree, when she earns it and when she is done with basketball, although all the attention lately has her convinced she will play on after college, even if not in America.

“It just feels great, getting attention for doing something you always wanted to do,” she said.

Hofstra may have been the only option she considered.

“I was recruited here for years, so I took the visit,” she said.

Evans, who at 235 pounds of muscle can bang in the post with the best of them, has taken up weight-training and has gotten stronger every season, as her opponents can attest.

“I have no fear to play anyone,” she said. “I could not play scared. If I did, I’d make a lot more mistakes.

“But that’s our team. You play your game, at your pace and it’s usually going to be okay. ... I worked hard, we all worked hard since I started playing here.”

That work ethic has made Evans one of the best collegiate players in America, as her spot on USA Basketball's 2011 Pan American Games team attests. Evans took time out last October to represent her country at the Games in Guadalajara, Mexico,  where she was second on the team only to high school sensation Breanna Stewart in rebounding with 7.8 rebounds per game. Many of the Latin American teams against which the young group of American collegians were pitted were comprised of seasoned international professionals; some even featured WNBA stars.

Hofstra's Shante Evans was named to the U.S. Pan-American Games squad last fall, where she was second on the team in rebounding with 7.8 boards per game. (Photo Courtesy USA Basketball)

“I finally got my chance to be among the top players in the country, to test myself against professionals,” Evans said.

There was, of course, a new coaching experience with the legendary Ceal Barry running the team and Women's Basketball Hall-of-Famers Debbie Ryan and Jennifer Gillom assisting on the sidelines.

“I just worked hard,” said Evans. “All those great players on top of their own respective games. I do some things differently.  Other players may be faster, may be taller, may be some of the professionals who have played overseas.

“I just wanted to learn how to be stronger, to control the basketball, to be smarter.”

She didn’t know what to expect at that next-level experiment.

“‘They don’t know me,’ is what I am thinking. Then we came off the plane and went straight to practice and I thought [of Barry], ‘She is a great coach.’ ”

What she brought back to Hofstra was a broader and deeper knowledge of the game, and, “definitely a better player,” Evans said.

Evans is a better player, to be sure. She has put up double-doubles in 11 of her last 15 games this season. Indeed, her game has picked up as the season has progressed; in that same 15-game span, she has averaged an even better 19.5 points and 11.4 rebounds per game.

But Evans is not only a better player this year, she is also a better leader, as well, one with vision of propelling Hofstra to its best finish in program history. She is already nearly there. Though the program has wobbled a bit of late, dropping back-to-back losses for the first time this season, to Old Dominion (79-81) and to No. 10 Delaware (60-76), the Pride broke their slide in their most recent game, an 82-70 romp over George Mason behind a game-high 28 points from Evans.

The win brought Hofstra's season record to 17-7 overall and 9-4 in CAA play, the third-best Division I start in Hofstra history. The Pride rank 11th in the nation in scoring, having put up 90 points or better in four contests this season, a program record. Their 100-97 win over William & Mary on Jan. 8 was Hofstra's first 100-point outing since becoming a Division I program in the 1982-83 season.

“And the team," Evans exclaimed, "the best season in Hofstra [history]. We get better players every year. We definitely have the best freshmen his season.”

Evans talks to them of course, sharing her vision of what Hofstra is and what it will yet become as they continue to progress.

The team's turnaround -- and Evans's individual accomplishments -- have not been lost on the Hofstra student body.

“We are getting more students out now,” she said. "Our parents are at every single game, but the more fans helps everybody on the team.

“How this will play put this year depends on how we finish. We plan to finish well.”