MONTREAL – Alex Kiss-Rusk, a McGill University graduate from Beaconsfield, Que., helped guide her professional team in Germany to its third national title in five years, last Friday. She scored 31 points and pulled down 28 rebounds over three games as Keltern swept the best-of-five Damen Basketball Bundesliga championship series, defeating the Saarlouis Royals 92-54, 93-57 and 76-62.
 
Keltern finished first of 12 teams in the DBBL, the top league in Germany, with a stellar 20-2 record this season, while Saarlouis was third with a 16-6 mark.
 
Kiss-Rusk, 31, had a stellar career at McGill, where the 6-foot-5 forward led the Martlets to four consecutive RSEQ conference titles, and captained the team to it's first national crown in 2017. She was voted Tournament MVP at the U SPORTS Final Eight championship, twice earned All-Canadian status, merited the RSEQ conference's player-of-the-year honours, and won the Gladys Bean Trophy as the University's female athlete of the year in 2017-18. 
 
She starred in the classroom as well, earning Academic All-Canadian status and making the Principal's Student-athlete Honour Roll. She graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree, majoring in psychology, and returned for a fifth season to study in social work.
 
Kiss-Rusk has had an extensive international career, playing for Canada in various tournaments, including the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru and the 2011 PanAm Games in Mexico. She had a stint with the national program in 2017-18, playing at a tournament in China and the Four Nations U-24 tourney in Tokyo, as well as the World Francophone Games in Abidjan (on the Ivory Coast of West Africa). She also played for Canada at the FISU Summer Games in Taipei and the Commonwealth Games in Australia.  
 
In 2020, a new athletic scholarship named the Alex Kiss-Rusk Award was established by George Lengvari for the McGill Martlets basketball program. The daughter of two McGill basketball grads – Annette Kiss (BCom '86) and Rick Rusk (LLB '82, BCL '83) – she began her professional basketball career in 2018, with Marburg of the Bundesliga, then had a stint in Belgium with the Spirou Ladies, a Div. 1 team.

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Info Officer
McGill Athletics & Recreation
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
(514) 983-7012