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Moriarty excited about Big Ten future

During Kendall Moriarty's freshman year at Benet she played volleyball, basketball and soccer.

It wasn't a hard decision to stick with basketball the next three years.

"I loved basketball more and I wasn't that good at volleyball and soccer," joked Moriarty.

It didn't take long for that decision to pay off. The 6-foot-1 shooting guard from Wheaton committed to Nebraska on Halloween of her junior season, then a little over a year later signed her letter of intent.

"It feels really good to finally say I'm officially part of the team," Moriarty said.

Nebraska feels really good to get a 2019 Daily Herald All-Area and IBCA All-State second team selection. Prospects Nation rates Moriarity as the 74th-ranked player in the 2021 class.

"She fits perfectly into all aspects of our program," Nebraska coach Amy Williams said. "She is a long, tough, gritty player with great versatility. She is a talented scorer, but her willingness to do all the dirty work on the court is what separates her. She is a great teammate and will lay it on the line for her team to win."

As a junior, Moriarty connected on 43.1% from beyond the arc and led Benet in steals and deflections.

"K-Mo is one of the best defenders to ever play for Benet," Benet coach Joe Kilbride said. "Her length, quickness and competitive grit have made her elite on defense. On offense she is an excellent 3-point shooter, but her biggest improvement has been in her ability to get to the rim almost at will and finish in a variety of ways. She is without a doubt one of the best 2021s in the state."

With six seniors on last year's Benet team who went to play college basketball plus four more underclassmen who either have committed to or are likely to play collegiately, there were plenty of high-level practices that helped Moriarty improve.

"Going against other good players will definitely improve your game and definitely helped me and a bunch of other girls," said Moriarty, whose teammate and Valparaiso signee Molly Sheehan agreed.

"Every single day our practices were harder than some of our games," Sheehan said. "We can go 5-on-5 for 30 minutes with Division I athletes going back and forth. In practice we are playing against some of the best girls in the state."

Moriarty, who will major in marketing, picked Nebraska over Wisconsin, Penn State, Iowa and Marquette.

"I've always wanted to play at a big school and once I started to get offers from the Big Ten I thought, 'Yeah, this is actually going to happen.' I love the Big Ten. The atmosphere of the whole Nebraska is just like a family. Everyone talks about that but it actually is. When I visited there, I was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to go here.' "

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