{"id":11757,"date":"2026-11-07T11:30:45","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T11:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/stephanie-okechukwu-worlds-tallest-womens-college-basketball-player-makes-her-debut\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T11:30:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T11:30:45","slug":"stephanie-okechukwu-worlds-tallest-womens-college-basketball-player-makes-her-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/stephanie-okechukwu-worlds-tallest-womens-college-basketball-player-makes-her-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie Okechukwu: World\u2019s tallest women\u2019s college basketball player makes her debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stephanie<\/p>\n

\n

It is a new era for women\u2019s college basketball after Thursday night\u2019s debut of 7-foot-1, 21-year-old Nigerian Stephanie Okechukwu at Texas Tech<\/a>. She is world\u2019s tallest women\u2019s college basketball player.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Texas Tech center Stephanie Okechukwu scored six points in her debut as women\u00b4s college basketball\u00b4s tallest player at 7-foot-1.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old freshman scored her first points on a pair of free throws and added 10 rebounds and three blocks in 21 minutes in a season-opening 64-37 win over Charlotte on Thursday night, the DailyMail<\/a><\/strong> reports. <\/p>\n

Destinee Hooks led the Lady Raiders with 16 points.<\/p>\n

Texas Tech coach Krista Gerlich believes there\u00b4s still much room for Okechukwu to grow as a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe does not think she played well,\u201d Gerlich said. \u201cI\u00b4m excited for her and it\u00b4s only going to get better. There is definitely more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okechukwu is from Nigeria and eclipses the previously tallest players listed at 6-10 \u2013 Middle Tennessee State freshman Nicole Dominguez and Eastern Illinois sophomore Abbie Boutilier.<\/p>\n

Okechukwu signed with Texas Tech in January but did not play last season. After completing her high school career in Japan in 2024, she split time playing in an AAU league in the Philippines and training in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

She was initially limited to just two years of college eligibility because she took what was considered a gap year off before the NCAA granted her four years after Texas Tech filed an appeal for a waiver.<\/p>\n

Vanguard New<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Stephanie Okechukwu: World\u2019s tallest women\u2019s college basketball player makes her debut<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

Vanguard News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a new era for women\u2019s college basketball after Thursday night\u2019s debut of 7-foot-1, 21-year-old Nigerian Stephanie Okechukwu at Texas Tech. She is world\u2019s tallest women\u2019s college basketball player.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}