
New York University's Natalie Bruns smiles as she heads down the court.
Natalie Bruns won't soon be forgotten at New York University.
The Kirkwood High grad finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds, eight assists and four blocks Saturday in a 77-49 NCAA Division III women's basketball championship game win over Smith for the Violets' second straight undefeated national title season.
"Recently, I've just been trying to take what is given to me, whatever I can read on the floor," Bruns, a 6-foot-1 forward, said. "And that's because I have such great teammates by my side. I can't get an assist unless they make the shot, and sometimes they make incredible plays, making me look good even when I make a bad pass."
The 2020 Post-Dispatch All-Metro girls basketball player of the year, Bruns exhausted her college eligibility, but her name will remain all over the Violets' record book.
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Bruns is sixth in career scoring (1,645), third in assists (391), third in field goal percentage (52.2%), fifth in free throw percentage (77.7%) and perhaps most impressively, Bruns has an NYU career-best 324 blocks, 142 more than the next-best.
If all of that wasn't enough, Bruns, with a 3.964 GPA, won the Elite 90 Award, which is given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA at the Final Four.
Bruns, a two-time Women's Basketball Coaches Association Division III player of the year and three-time University Athletic Association player of the year, also plays the piano, double bass and the ukulele.
But despite the almost unimaginable success on and off the court, relationships are what's most important to Bruns.
"I think the experience we've had here, the relationships we've built here, the process that we've bought into, is something that is going to change our lives forever, and that's what motivates us," Bruns said. "It's the people around us and everything that we've put into it. So we went into every game, you know, being like, how can we be the best versions of ourselves today, even though box scores looked a certain way. We could have been satisfied with a lot of different things, but we wanted to be the best version that we could be. And I think we did that."

New York University players and coaches celebrate their Division III national championship on Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Salem, Virginia.
Highlights from the Division III women's basketball championship game between NYU and Smith College.
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