Fueled by transfer Kiana Johnson, the Virginia Union University women’s basketball team has taken off like a rocket.

The 5-foot-7 dynamo leads the CIAA in scoring (24.8 points per game), assists (8.2 per game) and steals (4.2 per game) while steering the Lady Panthers to an 8-1 takeoff under first-year Coach AnnMarie Gilbert.

Inheriting a squad coming off a 9-18 season, Coach Gilbert felt she needed a quality point guard to jump start her inaugural season on Lombardy Street.

Johnson, a former three-year starter at Michigan State University of the Big 10 Conference, became the dream-come-true addition.

Coach Gilbert’s deep roots in Middle America played a role.

It helped that Coach Gilbert, a native Ohioan, is a former head coach at Eastern Michigan University (2007 to 2012) and former assistant coach/recruiting coordinator at Michigan State University (2003 to 2006).

“I’d known Kiana since she was in high school” at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago and “playing AAU” with Lady Fire, Coach Gilbert said. “When I found out she was available, we invited her for a visit.”

With a wide smile, Coach Gilbert recalls the deciding moments of Johnson’s official recruiting visit last spring:

“We took Kiana out to dinner and were all having a good time. I noticed her doodling on her napkin. Then just before we were going to leave, she pushed the napkin in my direction. It said, ‘I’m coming to Union.’

“I went “Yes!”

Here’s how Johnson recalls it:

“Almost as soon as I got off the plane, I felt at home. It was the family I was looking for.”

Johnson was a two-time, All-State performer in Illinois, earning the nickname “Thriller.”

As a mere freshman, she cracked the MSU lineup, assuming the role of floor leader.

“I prefer passing to scoring, but I’ll do whatever the team needs,” she said.

In parts of three seasons, 2011 to 2014 in East Lansing, she averaged 8.2 points and 4.5 assists per game while logging more than 30 minutes per game.

As a junior, she was leading the Big 10 with a 2.9 assists to turnovers ratio before being suspended from the team late in the 2013-14 season.

“Some personal issues,” she explained. “It was just better to leave than to stay.”

It was during that general timeframe that tragedy struck her young life.

“I lost my boyfriend to violence — to guns,” she said.

Asked to elaborate, she said:

“He was from the same neighborhood where I grew up. We started dating in November 2013. He was murdered in May 2014.”

Johnson sat out the 2014-15 season, working as a cashier and overnight stock person at a Jewel-Osco supermarket in Chicago.

“I was lost. I was trying to find myself,” she said of the layoff.

When the word went out that she wasn’t returning to Michigan State University, she was presented with transfer opportunities around the country.

Coach Gilbert’s connections — Coach Gilbert knew Johnson’s high school coach — lured Johnson from the Windy City to River City.

Johnson became an overnight success in maroon and steel, providing VUU’s bona fide threat to complement 6-foot-2 Lady Walker (averaging 18 points, 12 rebounds) in the paint.

Johnson seldom sits down. Averaging 38.4 minutes per game, she has hit 44 percent (20-46) from beyond the arc and is 61-79 from the foul line (77 percent).

Three times she has scored in the 30s.

Once a national power, VUU women’s hoops has been in a bit of a downturn. VUU won the NCAA Division II championship in 1983 and was national runner-up in 1984.

Johnson hopes to play professionally, if not in the WNBA, then overseas. But before signing a play-for-pay contract, she has work to do.

Pointing a finger to the Barco-Stevens Hall rafters, Johnson told a visitor, “It’s time for another banner.”