Nyajuacni Riak, who will be a sophomore next year at Madison LaFollette High School, is the seventh-best girls basketball player in the nationwide class of 2028, according to ESPN. She’s already gotten scholarship offers from Iowa State and Alabama, and interest UCLA and the University of Minnesota.
Riak flourished as a freshman at LaFollette last year and was one of 58 players invited to the USA Basketball U16 tryouts in Colorado Springs this year.
Riak held her own as one of the younger invitees and said the experience opened her eyes to an entirely new level of competition.
“I did pretty well there,” Riak said. “I could have done way better. It was my first time, my first USA experience. So, when I go back next time, I’ll do better.”
Riak said she enjoyed the speed and fury the other players brought.
“They play really fast,” she said of the elite national players. “You gotta be able to pick up full court. You’ve got to be very attentive, have to listen and know what you’re doing.”
Riak, who is 6’2”, is one of the biggest forwards in the Madison area. But she met girls who were towering at over 6’7” – as underclassmen – and said that added to the experience of being at a major basketball event.
“It was fun being able to play against other girls who are really good too. They were really big,” Riak said, noting that locally she hadn’t played against multiple elite players who were so tall and athletic.
While Riak wasn’t chosen for the final roster, she will have more opportunities to represent team USA over the next few summers through U17 and U18 international competitions.
The USA U16 team went undefeated at the FIBA U16 women’s Americup. They blew through other teams, including a 131-12 victory over Panama in the quarterfinals. They defeated Canada 85-59 in the championship game.
When she returned to Madison following the USA tryouts, Riak found the competition here was pretty easy compared to the players she faced in Colorado Springs.
“I played in summer league for my high school and going from that to summer league was really different, because my high school conference isn’t good,” she said. “You don’t really play against great teams like Arrowhead and stuff like that. We don’t have any teams in the Big Eight like that.”
Riak wants the Lancers to push the pace next season and have everyone committed to performing their roles at the highest level.
“I think we’re way better than last year,” Riak said. “I feel like everybody understands their role. We were really young last year and we had four freshmen and one junior starting.”
Will Green, LaFollette’s girls basketball coach, believes the crop of young players led by Riak are definitely ready to jump a level or two from where they were last season.
“I think we have all the tools to win it outright next year,” Green said. “For sure, this team is probably going to get our first regional championship. For me, I believe with this team right here, we can win the conference and position ourselves to really win a championship for sure.”
According to both Green and Riak, LaFollette played well against defending state champions Kimberly at a competition this summer.
“We went to Appleton maybe a month ago,” Green said. “We had to play Kimberly, Pewaukee, and Appleton East. I won’t lie, I thought if we go down there and we don’t play together, we can get blown out of these games. But I was really impressed we were able to maintain ourselves. It gave me an indication of how we’re right there.”
Riak can compete against any player or team in the nation, as she demonstrated at USA tryouts, and she feels ready to dominate local competition.
“I’m looking forward to playing teams we lost to last year,” she said. “I’m looking forward to playing Verona and Memorial, especially. If we beat them I feel like we’ll have a higher chance of getting to state.”
