Sisi Eleko was finished. She had played four college seasons, two at Canisius and two at Eastern Michigan, and she closed the last one leading the Mid-American Conference in rebounding and sitting third among active Division I players in career double-doubles. In any ordinary year that is a resume you take to a potential professional career, whether in the WNBA or overseas, not into another fall semester.
This was not an ordinary year. This week, Rutgers head coach Gary Redus II announced the signing of the 6-foot-2 graduate forward to the 2026-27 roster, giving the Scarlet Knights the kind of interior production that almost never surfaces in the last week of August.
"We're ecstatic to be able to add someone of Sisi's caliber this late in the process,"
Redus said in the release. He called her a diamond in the rough and said the rebounding should translate immediately.
A Blessing From the Colorado Courts
The reason Eleko was available at all traces back to Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the U.S. District Court of Colorado, who granted a class-wide preliminary injunction requiring the NCAA to declare eligible the high school class of 2022 athletes who had exhausted four seasons this spring.
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Eleko is one of them.
Her representation told On3 on Aug. 1 that she intended to enter the portal in light of the ruling. She sat there for a month. Rutgers, which had spent the spring rebuilding a roster that went 9-20 and finished last in the Big Ten at 1-17, got her name on Aug. 31 and made it official two days later. That timing is the whole story as portal windows close in the spring, and by Labor Day rosters are set and scholarships are spent. The injunction cracked open a second market nobody had budgeted for, and Rutgers was still shopping.
A Double Double Machine in Buffalo & Ypsilanti
Eleko's first stop was Canisius, and her sophomore year there remains one of the best individual seasons in recent MAAC history. She averaged 15.9 points and 10.6 rebounds, the only player in the conference to average a double-double, and her 328 rebounds set a program record. Her 18 double-doubles led the MAAC and ranked among the top 20 nationally. She was a unanimous All-MAAC First Team selection and made the All-MAAC Championship Team.
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She transferred to Eastern Michigan and got better. Across two seasons with the Eagles she posted the highest career rebounding average in program history at 10.0 per game and the highest career defensive rebounding average at 7.4. She also finished fourth in program history in points per game (17.7), fifth in minutes (33.7), seventh in offensive rebounds (2.5) and 29th in total points with 992. Her 31 double-doubles tied the Eastern Michigan record.
This past season is the one Rutgers is buying. Eleko averaged 17.6 points, second in the MAC, and 9.9 rebounds, first in the MAC, while shooting 48.5 percent from the field and adding 1.6 assists. She earned All-MAC Second Team honors for the second straight year and was named MAC Player of the Week three times. The consistency is the part worth sitting with. Eleko scored in double figures in every game she played, reached 20 or more in 10 of them, and pulled down at least 10 rebounds in 17 of 28 contests. Her 17 regular-season double-doubles led the conference and ranked seventh in the country.
The cumulative numbers are the ones that stand out on a Big Ten roster. Eleko leaves four years of college basketball with 1,735 points, which ranked among the top 35 active Division I players, and 1,053 rebounds, which ranked 12th nationally. Her 51 career double-doubles ranked third among active players as of March.
Redus is not asking Eleko to anchor a Big Ten defense on length, he is asking her to end possessions the way she has ended them in two different leagues, against opponents who were often bigger than she was. Redus also noted in the release that Eleko wants to play professionally, which makes this a mutual arrangement, a program that needs a floor raised, and a player who needs a stage to be seen on.
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Rutgers hosts Caldwell in an exhibition on Oct. 30 at Jersey Mike's Arena before opening the regular season Nov. 2 against LIU. Two months ago Eleko's career was over. She will spend the winter trying to make a Big Ten frontcourt out of a court ruling.
