Elyse Ngenda, one of the top prospects in New England and a nationally-ranked combo guard, announced her commitment to Stanford on Monday.
The Bedford, N.H., native is No. 95 in the ESPN Class of 2026 rankings. She chose the Cardinal from a top-five finalist list of academic and basketball strongholds that included Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern and Princeton.
Stanford offered Ngenda towards the end of this past AAU season, and she quickly felt coach Kate Paye and the staff made her a priority. It's common for prospects to schedule phone calls with coaches during the recruiting process, but Paye would call Ngenda frequently and randomly, just to check in. She often chatted with Ngenda's mom for more than an hour at a time as their own relationship grew. Paye also flew across the country to make a home visit, which meant a lot to Ngenda.
"To me that showed, dang, she actually does care about me as a person," Ngenda told New England Basketball Journal. "She was able to see what I was like at school and see my personality at a place like New Hampton, where I call my home, so that was really important to me as well."
PREMIER PROSPECT: Here's why Ngenda ranks among the best in New England
Ngenda has followed Paye's takeover of the Stanford program from retired coaching legend Tara VanDerveer. Paye led the Cardinal to a 16-15 record in her first season as head coach and has them 5-0 so far this year. Paye's Stanford roots are deep; she was born in Stanford Hospital, was a two-time team captain as a player and had been on the coaching staff since 2007-08.
"That's why I knew that it would be a good fit for me, because coming from a person that grew up in that area — if she's so adamant on loving that community so well that she's still deciding to coach there after playing there, after being born in that area, clearly, she loves it enough to want other people to thrive, just like how she did," Ngenda said.
Ngenda landed on our All-NEPSAC Class AAA First Team last winter by guiding the Huskies to the AAA semifinals as a junior. Her per-game averages of 16.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.9 steals only underscore the smart decision-making and two-way impact that define her game. The New Hampshire Gatorade Player of the Year even drilled 55 percent of her 3-pointers.
Her production only continued into her final AAU season with Mass Rivals. Ngenda led her 17U squad to the quarterfinals of the Adidas Palmetto Road championships, posting 12.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and a 40.7 percent 3-point clip across the entirety of Adidas 3SSB play.
Ngenda has earned the respect of several opposing coaches; in our offseason prep coaches' survey, she tied for the most votes in our question regarding the best overall player in NEPSAC.
"Her versatility. Leadership qualities. Down-to-earth character,” one coach said. “Being a good player is about so much more than skill. Being ‘the best’ really means you need the full package. If I could take one player off any other team it would be Elyse, hands down.”
Those traits could translate at Stanford right away. The Cardinal already lean on an impact freshman in Lara Somfai, who paces the team in scoring. In talks with the staff, Ngenda believes she'll fit in as a floor general who can run offense and work off the ball next to other stars.
"Being able to handle the ball as a point guard, but also being able to be off ball as well, hitting open shots, doing the little things," she said. "Being able to defend is really huge too just being in the ACC; that's obviously a great conference. We're playing really high competition, so just being able to do the little things. Being at Stanford and being with kids that are very, very talented, I won't have to do too much, because I'm going to be able to depend on other people around me that are going to be excelling on the court as well."
Ngenda's recruiting process included a significant academic burden because of the schools she looked at. She still had to get accepted into Stanford as a regular student, which meant crushing the SATs (Stanford recently added back an SAT requirement in applications), college supplemental essays and prep school grades.
Committing to Stanford and choosing between her finalist schools represents a massive accomplishment, both for Ngenda and her parents, who fled to the United States from a war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi in their 20s.
"Seeing the sacrifices that they made to be where they are, and then also just like wanting my sisters and I to live a life that was a lot easier compared to them (and) all the things that they went through," she said. "I think that (academic motivation) kind of stemmed from the culture that my family's from and how I grew up — just wanting to be successful."
