Collins Keeps Lady Bears in High Gear
1/2/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 2, 2001
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Erika Snoberger appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
Does anyone remember the Lady Bears of 1999-2000?
It seems almost impossible to recall the disjointed, often discontented group of women that took to the floor of the Ferrell Center just one year ago.
But who would want to go back?
Under first-year head coach Kim Mulkey and packed with returning talent and promising newcomers, the women's basketball program has appeared to fast-forward the rebuilding process, and Baylor is reveling in its women's presently undefeated season.
But talk to the Lady Bears themselves, and reveling is nowhere to be found. Credit the season in no small part to the team's new-found love of the game (winning will have that effect), but the reason this team produces like a business is because that is precisely the way it is run.
And who better to be installed CEO on the court than the team's dependable starting point guard, Nicole Collins? Entering her third season as a Lady Bear, Collins has already seen considerable success on and off the court.
Last year, she was the only Lady Bear to earn All-Big 12 accolades with an honorable mention, and she also topped the league's academic charts with her second first-team Academic All-Big 12 award.
SO FAR, THIS SEASON has been no different for her all-around success, and the redesigned squad has only enhanced Collins' momentum as far as her basketball career goes. And like everything else in her life, Collins takes it very seriously.
"I knew this season would be different," she said. "This past summer, a lot changed with our strength and conditioning," she said. "The eight returners were here all summer and we worked out every single day, hitting the weights and just getting toned. I know a lot of us have become a lot stronger and a lot quicker."
Collins said she expected many changes before the season began and she knew her role, along with that of the other team veterans, would be magnified because of it. She took her responsibility in stride, and her teammates and coaches give positive testimony to that.
"NICOLE, ALONG WITH the rest of the team, has really had to learn a new style of play," Mulkey said. "The thing I have seen from Nicole is that she has really accepted our coaching style and I am very pleased with the role she has taken on this team. She's got a lot of things going on - a new system, better players, more depth, and her attitude has really been one that I believe will allow her to continue to be successful."
Collins has all the typical characteristics of a point guard, but her style and her court presence are far from ordinary. She stands just two inches over the five-foot mark, but what she lacks in vertical power she more than compensates for in speed. She led the team last season in steals with 56.
"Nicole is obviously going to be quick because of her size," Mulkey said."But there is more than just her size that makes her that way. She has really worked to become very conscious and aware of the ball and what is going on on the court, and that mental toughness allows her to use her body physically in ways she couldn't without that mental aspect."
At a position Mulkey deemed "quarterback of the basketball court," Collins' job extends beyond the technical skills of the game.
"As a point guard, you have to be a leader, the coach on the floor," Mulkey said. "You have to understand the jobs of everybody on the floor, not just your own."
And if there is one person who understands just that, it's Mulkey. As a point guard herself during an illustrious playing career which included an Olympic Gold Medal in 1984 and two NCAA National Championships, she said she is sometimes harder on the point guard position as a coach.
"I'VE NEVER HAD a coach who has actually played my position," Collins said. "So I know when she's telling me what to do, that she knows what she's talking about. Sometimes it seems like she points out more of my mistakes, but I know that is just because she is an expert at what I should and shouldn't be doing. I feel like for the guards it's a real advantage to have a coach who has actually been here before."
ANOTHER important characteristic Collins brings to the Lady Bears is her vocal leadership. Necessary to the nature of her position, she has assumed a position of floor general, calling plays and keeping the squad's control intact.
"She really keeps us in place," teammate and forward Danielle Crockrom said. "When we're out there and we're getting too crazy, then it's up to her to stop it and pull us back together and get back into a rhythm, and that is exactly what she does. Coach (Mulkey) has asked her to step up this season and play the role of a true point guard. I really think Nicole is doing the things Coach [Mulkey] is showing her, seeing the plays we need to make, really penetrating against a zone and doing a lot of other things she maybe wouldn't normally do."
AMONG THE non-traditional skills Collins has been challenged to develop is an aggressive defense, from directing formations to making plays under the basket. Defense has been an area in which Mulkey has called for improvement, and she has not been disappointed by Collins' response.
"She really does a tremendous job of pressuring the ball defensively," Mulkey said. "She is clearly a threat in the back court, but I have also seen some things from her underneath the basket, getting rebounds, that is really the essence of why she is so successful. She is able to adapt to the situation at hand. Any good team needs leadership on the playing field, and she has been that."
COLLINS HAS PROVEN herself to be a talented, competitive and successful basketball player at Baylor, but Mulkey said there is one more thing Collins has that will transfer her success into real life, long after she has played her final game.
"So many young people live day to day," Mulkey said. "But Nicole has a vision. She is focused on her life as it is now, but she is also able to see where she wants to be five, ten years down the road. She definitely thinks about her academic and professional future, and she has goals and a mind that strives to get there."
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Erika Snoberger appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.