{"id":111213,"date":"2026-01-05T11:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/111213\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:58:14","slug":"report-texas-tech-adding-tallest-player-in-womens-college-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/111213\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Texas Tech adding tallest player in women&#8217;s college basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Tech Lady Raiders coach Krista Gerlich reportedly landed a big recruit on Thursday &#8212; the biggest in women&#8217;s college basketball history.<\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Okechukwu, a 7-footer from Nigeria, signed to play for 21st-ranked Texas Tech, USA Today reported. If she does play for the Lady Raiders, she would surpass Nicole Dominguez of Middle Tennessee State and Abbie Boutilier of Eastern Illinois, both 6-foot-10 centers, to become the tallest college player ever in the women&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Tech athletic department didn&#8217;t make the news official, but it did post a photo on its website of Okechukwu palming a basketball in each hand.<\/p>\n<p>Gerlich tweeted a video of a tall woman walking through an airport, with the text reading, &#8220;Walking into the New Year feeling 7 feet tall! #WreckEm&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Okechukwu would need NCAA approval to join the Lady Raiders midseason. According to USA Today, other major-conference schools including West Virginia attempted to land Okechukwu, but Texas Tech succeeded by sending an assistant coach to visit her in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The 7-footer&#8217;s arrival would bolster the Lady Raiders, who have equaled the best start in team history at 15-0 overall (2-0 in the Big 12).<\/p>\n<p>Texas Tech plays host to Arizona on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Tech Lady Raiders coach Krista Gerlich reportedly landed a big recruit on Thursday &#8212; the biggest in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-111213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-lubbock","9":"tag-lubbock-headlines","10":"tag-lubbock-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}