Monica Arnold Riding Roller Coaster High
1/26/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 26, 2001
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Brice Cherry 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.
Considering as many peaks and valleys as she's been through, Monica Arnold might have a future as a mountain climber.
Arnold, a senior post on the Lady Bear basketball team, has experienced all the stability of a yo-yo in her four-year career. As the only freshman on the roster in 1997-98, Arnold played on a Baylor team that advanced all the way to the championship game of the WNIT tournament.
But by her junior year last year, the Lady Bears had plummeted so far that they won just two of 16 Big 12 games.
"Last year was such a struggle," Arnold said. "I cried day in and day out. I almost wanted to give up."
"But," she added, "I didn't. And now I'm having the time of my life."
With a new coach and a fresh attitude, Arnold and the Lady Bears are climbing back up the mountain, blazing out to a 13-1 start and the first top-25 ranking in 23 years. And the senior post from Austin has played an instrumental role, averaging 11.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.
IT'S BEEN A WELCOME upswing in a roller-coaster career for Arnold.
"I've been here four years and it's been pretty hard," she said. "I've been to the highest and the lowest. This year, I've never felt so great with winning. Winning was just coming naturally to us and it was such a high."
Much of the sky-high enthusiasm circulating around the program can be traced back to the arrival of head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson, who joined Baylor last April after 15 seasons as an assistant at Louisiana Tech.
With Mulkey-Robertson's hands-on approach and gung-ho attitude, she has Arnold and the hungry Lady Bears eating out of her hand.
"Coach gets on us and she's a major key in our wins and victories," Arnold said. "Because she believes in us and a lot of people don't. A lot of people look at us and tell us to our face, 'Y'all haven't played nobody.' But she realizes we have the talent, and that's getting us where we need to be."
GETTING ON THE ground floor of what will no doubt be referred to someday as the "Mulkey Era" is exciting for Arnold. She's perceptive enough to realize Baylor women's basketball is only going to get better.
"Since it's her first year at Baylor and first year as head coach, many people are like, 'Whoa!' " said Arnold, who admits she has the occasional fleeting wish that she wasn't a senior. "And this is just her first year. It has to get better. She's going to recruit players that are going to come in here and help us out.
"She knows how to coach, and that's no doubt. I think everyone has seen that. You can't just start out 13-0 with no coaching."
But even a coach's best X-and-O diagrams are merely games of Tic-Tac-Toe without help from the players. And Baylor has gotten that, especially from junior transfer guard Sheila Lambert, who has averaged 24.5 points and 6 assists, and junior forward Danielle Crockrom, who's hit for 21.0 points and 12.4 rebounds.
With talented teammates like those, Arnold is content to be the third option.
"I just want to keep winning," she said. "Whatever it takes. If I produce five or six points and we win, I'm happy. ... Points are not really my thing. I want to focus more on defense. If I lean towards offense too much, I'll get distracted from my defense."
Arnold's coach said the senior has been doing everything she's asked.
"If Monica will come in and get her 10 or 11 points, be our leading rebounder on occasion and play good defense, that's all we can ask," Mulkey-Robertson said. "She knows her role, and she's made us that much better by accepting it."
There's no question this has been Arnold's best year, by far. Numbers-wise, she's playing more minutes, scoring more points, grabbing more rebounds and shooting at a higher percentage than any prior season.
Part of that can be attributed to an increased level of fitness.
"One reason she's doing well is because she's in the best shape of her life," Mulkey-Robertson said. "It's paid big dividends."
Even when her team struggled the past couple of years, Arnold never lost faith in her own ability. She never stopped trying to improve, and that doggedness has resulted in this career season.
Yet even now, she expects more out of herself.
"I'm finishing shots, but I'm still not that consistent," she said. "That's my goal. That's what I'm trying to reach. I'm trying to focus on finishing the shots."
Four years ago, Arnold came to Baylor with visions of NCAA tournament appearances dancing in her head. She'd had a monster senior season at Austin Johnston High School, averaging 23.6 points, 14.3 rebounds and 7.9 blocks, and the Lady Bears seemed to be on the cusp of greatness.
Four years later, Arnold is still seeking her first invitation to the "Big Dance." The thought that a trip is within reach this year is what drives her, what keeps her up nights.
"(The NCAA's) are our ultimate goal, right there. That's what we're working for day in and day out," she said. "Some teams are just better than us. We have to realize that. But it's who plays the hardest. I think we can beat a lot of these teams and surprise them."
And Arnold understands that it all starts with the Big 12.
"At the Big 12 tournament, we're known for losing our first game," she said candidly. "But one of our goals this season is to win in the postseason. So that means we need to win a game once we go to the (Big 12) tournament and hopefully then we can get a bid to the NCAAs."
The 23rd-ranked Lady Bears seem well on their way. Though they dropped their first game of the season last Wednesday at Texas Tech, it was to a typically-tough Lady Raiders team ranked 11th in the country. Arnold said the atmosphere in Lubbock -- the game was played in front of more than 13,000 screaming Tech fans -- was electric, and was something she'd love to experience at the Ferrell Center.
"The fans are our sixth man on the floor," she said. "Sometimes we need our fans to help us get that momentum going. . . . The feeling inside is like, 'Yeah!' You know? That motivates you to want to play defense. And then you force a turnover, and they just get louder. And then you come down the floor and score again, and they just get louder.
"And all of the sudden, we can't hear the plays that Coach is calling for us. But that's all right, because the momentum, the feeling, is great."
As bright as the future is for Baylor women's basketball, so too is Arnold's. She's hoping to play professional basketball either overseas or in the WNBA and then possibly move into coaching.
"I'm just not ready to start being in the real world and getting a job," she said with a slight grin.
But first she'd love to go out flying high, with her first-ever trip to the NCAA tournament.
"Considering I've been here four years and never been to the NCAAs, that would just be awesome," Arnold said. "That would top it off."
If ever there were a player who deserved a mountaintop exit, it's Monica Arnold.
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Brice Cherry 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.
