As LMU women’s basketball senior guard Sydney Gandy dribbled up the court, she passed the ball to senior forward Alexis Mark for a left-corner shot. Mark had been starting for the Lions since transferring from Boise State University in 2021 — and she’d been the Lion’s leading scorer for most of her time with the team.
The three she shot and made from the left corner, in the first quarter of a January win against Saint Mary’s, gave her 1,000 points in her college career. After it went in with a swish, Mark was smiling from ear to ear.
“I was lowkey counting my points during that game,” she told the Lion. “I knew I was only a few points away and it was very exciting for me.”
Scoring 1,000 points in a college basketball career is a major milestone that requires strength and discipline. Getting countless shots up in the gym, while also avoiding injury, comes at a price: Often giving up the typical college experience of going out and meeting new people, which results in many challenging days of asking whether it’s all worth it. But this season alone, three players on the women’s team overcame all of that and accomplished the feat: Mark, senior forward Soufia Inoussa, and Gandy, a senior guard.
According to Los Angeles native Mark, the secret to her success is having grace for herself.
Alexis Mark. (Photo via LMU Athletics)
“It took me a while to realize basketball was not my whole life,” she said. “There’s more to life than basketball and sports in general, and I can’t let it consume me. Knowing that this is all temporary and that hard work will always prevail gives me more light and grace for myself when other aspects of life get challenging.”
Inoussa hails from Stockholm, Sweden, and played at New Mexico State University from 2019 to 2023 while working toward her undergraduate degree. In 2023 she transferred to LMU for her final year of eligibility; she’s pursuing a graduate degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovative Sustainability. This season, she shot 30 percent from beyond the arc.
Soufia Inoussa. (Photo via LMU Athletics)
“It’s amazing to reach a milestone so big,” she said. “It’s a great accomplishment not only for yourself but for your teammates as well. Thinking about all your teammates that you’ve played with to help you reach this point… I’m happy I could do this for them.”
Though the Lions finished in the bottom half of the conference this season, Inoussa believes they made progress. The team went 10-18 and 5-11 this year; last season, they went 7-23 overall and 4-14 in conference.
“I came to LMU to be a part of something bigger, to be a part of a progress being made,” Inoussa said. “Not many people believed in us before the season, and, according to an ESPN poll, we were picked to finish last in the conference.”
Sydney Gandy. (Photo via LMU Athletics)
Gandy, a Long Beach native, returned to L.A. for her senior year at LMU after transferring from the University of Idaho. In the 2023 season, the guard made 67 three-pointers, which ranked her 5th in the Big Sky Conference. This year, Gandy finished 7th in the West Coast Conference with 4.1 assists per game.
However, for her the biggest accomplishment this season was reaching 1,000 career points. Gandy was tasked with moving from shooting guard to point guard this year, a huge challenge that also limited her scoring chances. Still, Gandy needed only one basket at the start of the February game against the University of San Diego to reach the milestone — which came as a big relief.
When Gandy sees adversity, she overcomes it with grace and tenacity.
“I knew going into it I only needed to score two points,” she said, “so once I was thankfully able to do that in the first quarter, all I could think was ‘Thank God!’ I felt a sense of joy and overall accomplishment — that the blood sweat and tears that you put it in just makes it all worth it in the end.
“It feels amazing that I could do this with two other people on my team as well. I’m so thankful to all my teammates past and present and couldn’t have done this without them.”
