Orange Add MEAC Player of the Year Jayla Thornton

Jayla Thornton, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Player of the Year is coming to Syracuse. The league's all-time 3-point shooter will join Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman's squad as a grad transfer for the 2021-22 basketball season.

Thornton was named MEAC Player of the Year and helped Howard to the No. 1 seed in the 2021 Air Force Reserve MEAC Basketball Tournament. The Bison won the regular season divisional championship and posted a 15-4 overall record and went 10-2 in conference play.

In her four years at Howard, Thornton averaged 11.5 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. She appeared in 106 games and earned 78 starts, which included starting every game for the last two seasons. Thornton holds the MEAC record for 3-pointers made with 275 during her four-year career with the Bison. She made a career-best 97 threes as a sophomore and shot 37 percent from downtown that season. Thornton scored in double figures 12 times and amassed 20+ points on five occasions including a season high 29 points in a win over Richmond on Dec. 22, 2020.

The 5-foot-10 guard from Newark, N.J., is a 2017 graduate of Newark Tech. She was named Bison Blue Carpet Awards Rookie of the Year after her freshman season and was named to the Dean's List. She is a three-time honoree on the MEAC Commissioner's All-Academic Team and has been named to the MEAC All-Conference Team three times. In 2018-19 she was ranked the No. 3 HBCU Women's Basketball Player by "The Undefeated."

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Syracuse University Athletics

Orange Add MEAC Player of the Year Jayla Thornton

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