THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602040180
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
Everything about basketball was a struggle for Old Dominion's Nyree Roberts last year, right down to which number she would wear for the Lady Monarchs.
``What number do you want?'' ODU assistant coach Allison Greene asked the center from Newark, N.J.
Easy, Roberts thought. She wanted the number she wore at Jersey City's St. Anthony High School, which had produced NBA guard Bobby Hurley.
``45,'' she told Greene.
Already gone; it belonged to Esther Benjamin
``44?'' Roberts had worn that number, too, for the St. Anthony Friars.
Nope, Kelly Bradley had dibs on that one.
``OK, 32,'' Roberts said, a la Shaquille O'Neal.
Gone - property of Angie Liston.
``I was watching the North Carolina game at the time,'' Roberts recalls. ``I saw Eric Montross run past the screen, and I just said `Double 0.' All my numbers were taken.''
The numbers game solved, Roberts went on to tackle larger woes. She felt out of shape and out-of-sync during practice. Her largely self-taught basketball skills didn't fly at ODU. ``I was a mess,'' she admits. ``I wondered, `Why did they recruit me?' ''
Nobody is wondering that now. ODU's double-zeroed post player is third on the team in scoring (10.2 ppg) and leading the Colonial Athletic Association in blocked shots with 1.4 per game. In the Lady Monarchs' last three games, she has hit 25 of 33 shots from the field for 54 points. Against George Mason last Monday, she scored a career-high 21 points.
``Nyree is a former figment of herself since she arrived on campus,'' says Wendy Larry, coach of 11th-ranked ODU, which meets East Carolina at 6 p.m. today at the field house. ``I think Nyree has improved tremendously since the beginning of the year. She's working hard on developing a right hand, because the word was out for so long that she was strictly a left-handed player. She's working hard on step moves, on being a little more fluid and also creating a little jumper, which will make her more difficult to play.''
Before learning under Larry, much of Roberts' hoops education came from within. She never missed a boys game at St. Anthony's, where her brother, Jalil, who's sitting out this season after transferring to Seton Hall from Wisconsin, was a four-year starter.
``It's the place you want to be for high school basketball'' for boys, says Roberts, whose traditional first stop when visiting Jersey City is her close-knit high school of 250 kids. ``Now girls,'' she says laughing, ``that's another story. We were not that good.''
Despite averaging 20 points and 16 rebounds as a senior, Roberts insists she had no clue about basketball. During the summer of her junior year, her AAU team won state and headed for nationals in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The team fared poorly - ``We didn't even win the loser's bracket,'' she said - but Roberts made an impression on former ODU assistant Anne Donovan, who was in town recruiting.
When Roberts got back to Jersey, she was in awe of the stacks of mail from schools she had never heard of. One was Old Dominion.
She added ODU to her list of five - the others being Penn State, Connecticut, New Hampshire and the University of Hartford. ODU was her third visit, and immediately she felt at home.
``I didn't want to go to a big school like UConn and not play, even though I could have had a ring on my finger,'' she says, referring to the Huskies' national championship victory last year. ``I didn't want to go to a sorry school, either. I felt like Old Dominion was right in the middle, and we could work our way up to the top. And that's what we've done.''
It's the midway mark for ODU in the conference, and Roberts has thrived against CAA opponents. Versus the CAA, she leads the team in field-goal percentage (26 of 40 for 65 percent) and she's second in rebounds, averaging five per game. And she's found success against the tougher opponents, sometimes when ODU hasn't. Against the U.S. national team in December, she was the team's scoring leader with 17 points. In the Lady Monarchs' 69-47 loss to Tennessee, Roberts led ODU with 13 points, five rebounds, two blocked shots and two steals.
``She's got the body type to go to war with anybody,'' said Larry of Roberts' 6-foot-3 frame. ``She's strong and quick, and she can basically beef it up with anybody.''
Despite her offensive output, Roberts considers defense her speciality. She admits to picking up little tricks every day from teammate Mery Andrade - ``When I'm playing her and she posts up on me, it's like `You're through.' She has this way of getting down and you can't get around her,'' Roberts says admiringly.
``Last year I felt I wasn't a good defensive player. I always got caught behind my man and they always somehow got the ball. But this year, I'm like `You are not getting the ball unless I am out of the game.' ''
Offensively, she's working on her follow-through after layups, something she wasn't doing in the beginning of the season. In addition, Larry would like to see Roberts master a 15-foot jumper - ``If she does, there won't be anyone in the country to stop her,'' she says.
Roberts has other goals, too. No, not a 3-pointer; she's never even tried one of those.
``I want to attempt a dunk in a game before I leave Old Dominion,'' she says. ``By my senior year, I think I can do it.'' Pausing, she laughs, adding, ``I'm not going to say I'll make it. But I'll attempt it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Nyree Roberts, at 6-foot-3, is the ODU women's No. 3 scorer and the
Colonial Athletic Association's No. 1 shot blocker.
by CNB