 "Photo: Mitchell Franz")
Monique Kovacs vividly remembers a gangly, awkward Kayla Alexander walking through the door for a REP League - Canada's AAU equivalent - tryout.
Suddenly, all eyes gazed in Alexander's direction. Despite having never seen the kid play, and having 50 other girls at the tryout, Kovacs couldn't help but be intrigued by Alexander's size.
"I was like, 'OK, she's 6-foot-1, grade seven,'" Kovacs said. "As a coach, that's obviously something you're going to look at in a tryout."
But as she watched Alexander bounce around the court, it became apparent she was still
"learning where her arms and legs were." She had no idea how to use her body, what would become her biggest on-court weapon. So Kovacs began to envision something more. It became obvious that there was a lot more to Alexander.
"It didn't take long for her to move her way up from being the bottom of the roster to the top, shall we say," Kovacs said.
Since then, Alexander, now a 6-foot-4 freshman on the Syracuse women's basketball team, has relied heavily on those inherent basketball abilities and instincts to vault herself into the top five in team scoring, rebounding, blocks and field-goal percentage in her first year. It seems there's no coincidence that her arrival on campus coincided with a program-best start.
"I was just hoping I would get to see the floor," Alexander said. "So to play this much has been a nice surprise."
Syracuse will look to Alexander early and often when the Orange (15-3, 3-3 Big East) take on St. John's (15-3, 4-2) tonight in an attempt to secure a valuable conference win and improve its NCAA Tournament resume.
Though her size has served as an added bonus along the way, those close to the rookie insist that it isn't simply her height that has caused her to find success on the basketball court.
Needless to say, things in the grade seven REP League went well. She continued to develop as a player, which opened the door to Team Ontario - a team comprised of the top players in the province under the age of 17. Meanwhile, she kept growing and kept developing her game against older, stronger, more experienced players. That forced her to work hard, which, in turn, elevated her game during a critical part of her maturation as a basketball player.
She spent three years as part of Team Ontario and, in her last two summers on the team, helped secure a Canadian national championship, while averaging 17.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in 2008.
Skye Angus, Alexander's coach while with Team Ontario, saw Alexander's capacity for growth. She understood how the once-lumbering seventh-grader became a force on the court.
"One of the things that separates Kayla from other players is her work ethic and how coachable she is," Angus said. "She isn't afraid to work hard and constantly strives to be better. She is one of those players that wants you to push them. She wants to get better and is willing to put in the work to get there."
Alexander continually drew upon that work ethic to maximize her on-court potential. Upon the conclusion of a highly decorated high school career, the scholarship offers started pouring in. But the SU coaching staff had proximity and the immediate chance to play working in their favor.
"The difficult part was that everybody recruited her," SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. "But one thing I told everybody is that she would have a great opportunity to play a lot of minutes here. We really needed an inside presence, we needed someone who could help Vionca (Murray) out immediately, and she's done that."
Upon her arrival on campus, Alexander immediately made her presence felt. After averaging 18 points, four rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots in two games versus Wagner and Ohio, she was named Big East Freshman of the Week.
Against Wagner, Alexander flashed the potential that made her such a sought-after recruit. When all five starters were replaced within the first few minutes of the game, Alexander took over. Alexander had half of her team's 24 points through the game's first 12:43.
With SU leading 24-21, Alexander blocked a shot that triggered a fast break, hustled downcourt and finished strong at the other end. The Orange broke free and cruised to the easy victory. She finished the game with 23 points in just 19 minutes of action to lead all scorers, leading the Orange to a 93-55 blowout victory.
"I'm becoming more assertive, posting up stronger and asking for the ball," Alexander said. "I'm getting used to the way they play in university, just the speed and physicality of it."
Kovacs, Alexander's first coach, still keeps her player's mid-season evaluation from those grade-school teams - a self-assessment sheet where players write their own strengths and weaknesses for their coach to read.
And whenever Kovacs indulges herself to take a peek at Alexander's, the only thing she sees is a flurry of statements, each like the last. 'I need to improve,' 'I could be doing better' and 'I'm still working on this.'
Kovacs knows that the drive and unrelenting determination to get better is what has taken her this far. From awkward to assertive. From potential for growth to primary target.
"I'd set a level, and Kayla would push herself to go past that level," Kovacs said. "But it wasn't really me pushing her, it was her pushing herself. I may have been her first coach, but she did all the work."
aljohn@syr.edu
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