Tiana Mangakahia, who was identified for her exact passing and unbelievable playmaking skills whereas starring for Syracuse’s girls’s basketball staff, died on Thursday on the age of 30 after a prolonged battle with most cancers.
Her dying was introduced in a put up on her Instagram account and likewise confirmed by Syracuse athletics. The put up on her Instagram mentioned: “Tiana was a shining gentle who touched the lives of everybody she met along with her kindness, energy, and heat. She fought proper until the very finish, displaying braveness and charm past phrases.”
In a put up dated Sept. 3, Mangakahia introduced that her well being had “taken a destructive flip” and her most cancers had “progressed” inflicting her to expertise “vital bodily decline.”
Mangakahia’s public battle with most cancers started when she was a junior at Syracuse. A local of Queensland, Australia, she got here to the U.S. to play first at Hutchinson Neighborhood School in Kansas, after which transferred to upstate New York to affix the Orange, then coached by Quentin Hillsman. She shortly established herself as an electrical level guard with a excessive basketball IQ and very good courtroom imaginative and prescient. As a sophomore, she led the nation in assists with 9.8 per recreation. Since 2009, the one faculty participant to common extra assists in a single season was Courtney Vandersloot in 2011.
In her first two seasons at Syracuse, Mangakahia additionally led the NCAA in help price, posting marks of 60.4 and 51.7. Since 2009, there have solely been 4 seasons recorded by gamers (who’ve performed in at the least 20 video games and at the least 20 minutes per recreation) with help charges greater than 50 p.c. Mangakahia owns two of them, Caitlin Clark has one, and the fourth belongs to Dequesha McClanahan of Winthrop, in keeping with Her Hoop Stats.
Throughout each of these seasons, Mangakahia helped lead the Orange to the NCAA Event.
Then her first most cancers prognosis surfaced. In November 2019, she underwent a double mastectomy whereas battling stage 2 grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma — a type of breast most cancers — which prompted her to overlook the 2019-20 season.
Mangakahia courageously returned to the courtroom the next season although, averaging 11.5 factors and seven.2 assists per recreation, once more guiding the Orange into March Insanity. And as soon as once more, she was second nationally in assists per recreation.
“If anybody has 600-plus days off, and comes again and leads the nation in assists, that’s an incredible accomplishment. I don’t even know what to say (about that),” Hillsman mentioned again in February 2021, shortly after Mangakahia introduced she wouldn’t use her additional yr of collegiate eligibility and would flip professional as an alternative. “Tiana has been what she’s all the time been: very regular, attempting to steer our staff by instance and taking part in the toughest she will be able to play.”
Mangakahia left Syracuse because the proprietor of a number of program and ACC information. She is the ACC’s all-time chief in profession assists per recreation (8.7), help proportion (52.8) and free throw proportion (87.3). She’s Syracuse’s all-time chief in complete assists with 736, which is fourth-best in ACC historical past. A two-time All-ACC First Workforce choice, a two-time WBCA All-American and a two-time Lieberman Award finalist, she additionally holds single-game Syracuse information in assists (17) and free throws made (20). Mangakahia can be the proprietor of the ACC Event single recreation assists report with 13 vs. Miami in 2019.
In the NCAA report books, Mangakahia’s profession help common is fifth-best all-time and the very best of any collegiate participant this century — simply .44 proportion factors higher than what Vandersloot posted at Gonzaga.
She went unselected within the 2021 WNBA Draft, however joined the Phoenix Mercury briefly for coaching camp earlier than being waived. Mangakahia then launched into a global professional profession with stops in Russia, France and her native Australia. In 2022, she was named to the All-Star 5 and MVP of the North in NBL1. Mangakahia additionally featured for the Australian nationwide staff within the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup, serving to the Opals win a bronze medal.
Mangakahia had introduced her retirement in 2023 after her breast most cancers had progressed to stage 4, however she returned to the courtroom earlier this yr in NBL1 and averaged 12.1 factors and three.6 assists per recreation. She had meant to play within the upcoming season too, signing with the New Zealand-based Tokomanawa Queens.
“Tiana outlined braveness, inspiration, and keenness,” Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack mentioned in a press release. “An All-American on the basketball courtroom, she was a good higher particular person off the courtroom. She was type, thoughtful, caring, and all the time uplifting even throughout probably the most difficult of instances.”
Present Syracuse coach Felisha Legette-Jack known as Mangakahia the “final fighter.”
Many others around the globe of girls’s basketball supplied feedback too. Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham — who crossed paths with Mangakahia in Phoenix’s 2021 coaching camp — mentioned she was “all the time so candy with the brightest smile.” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart wrote that Mangakahia was, “An incredible competitor, a real chief, and all the time a category act.”
Rhode Island coach Tammi Reiss, who was a Syracuse assistant throughout Mangakahia’s first two seasons, mentioned she may “play that (level guard) place like no different.”
