Freshman Point Guard Ready For The Moment
3/16/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Watching from the stands the last few years, Alexis Morris saw just how demanding and hard Baylor coach Kim Mulkey can be on her point guards. Since she played the position, the standard is higher than some players can take.
But, it's actually the biggest reason why the freshman point guard from Beaumont, Texas, picked Baylor over Georgia, UCLA, Penn State and Ohio State.
"I could just tell by how she talked to me on the phone that she was going to push me to be a better player and be the best point guard," Morris said. Mulkey's recruiting pitch to her was, "Why wouldn't you come to Baylor? Who can teach you the point guard position better than me?"
"She's a Hall of Famer, an All-American, she's done it all," Morris said. "She was great in her day. Why wouldn't she be able to teach me?"
Morris may not be ready to take the pebble from the master's hand, the way Caine did in the old "Kung Fu" TV show ÃÆ'Æ'à € 'ÃÆ'â ‚¬ ' ¢ÃƒÆ'Æ'à € ' ¢' ¬" "When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave," Master Kan told Young Caine.
But, as she showed in leading the Lady Bears to the Big 12 Championship title in Oklahoma City, Morris can certainly fill in for injured senior starter Kristy Wallace. Playing with the confidence and swagger of a much more seasoned player, the 5-foot-6 freshman averaged 14.3 points, 4.0 assists and 3.7 rebounds and shot a cool 60 percent from 3-point range in earning all-tournament honors.
"Guys, that was no fluke. The kid can play," said Mulkey, whose second-seeded Lady Bears (31-1) will open the NCAA Championship with a first-round matchup against 15th-seeded Grambling State (19-13) at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Ferrell Center. "She's got a swagger about her that she expects to do it. . . . It helped her, probably, to play it. But, in her world and in my mind, all she did was expected and we've seen it every day."
Make no bones about it, Mulkey and the team miss the leadership and experience of Wallace, who suffered a torn ACL in the regular-season finale. And she seemed to be clicking at the right time, averaging 21.5 points in the four previous games while knocking down 8-of-18 from 3-point range.
Morris, who's averaging 8.9 points and 3.1 assists for the year, can make up for the points. But, Mulkey says, "I have to work extremely hard myself as a coach to stay focused, because I took for granted that Kristy would do it for me."
"And now, I've got to help (Morris), if it's a quick inbounds, change of plays. If it's a different play in the middle of the game. Those types of things, she's going to make me stay on my toes more."
What Mulkey saw early on, though, was that her freshman point guard wasn't afraid of anything. "We have scrimmaged every day and watched them go at it," she said. "I'm sure (the Big 12 tournament) helped her, but honestly we expect that."
As big a stage as the Big 12 tournament was, this is obviously bigger.
Morris led her Legacy Christian Academy team to the TAPPS 3A state championship last year and won a bronze medal playing for USA Basketball in the 2015 FIBA Americas U16 Championship in Mexico.
The NCAA tournament is win or go home.
"That's the vibe I'm getting, this is serious," Morris said. "I'm just trying to stay level-headed, because it's easy for me being a young player to get too excited and then get nervous and mess up. I'm just staying level-headed and focused and poised."
Baylor will have an obvious size advantage in the post with 6-7 junior center Kalani Brown (20.2 ppg, 10.1 rebounds) and 6-4 sophomore forward Lauren Cox (14.7 ppg, 9.4 rebounds, 2.7 blocks). The Lady Tigers have only one player taller than 6-foot, and 6-3 junior Kailyn Gideon is only averaging 2.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game.
Monisha Neal, a 5-9 senior, says "height doesn't really matter."
"We've played height before," she said. "We're smaller, so we're going to run on them. Height can get tired quick. So, that's what we plan on."
Shakyla Hill, a 5-6 junior guard who joined Neal on the All-SWAC first team, said the Lady Tigers will "take heart over height any day."
It could be an interesting matchup between Morris and Hill, who recorded just the fourth quadruple-double in NCAA women's basketball history earlier this season when she had 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in a win over Alabama State.
"The kid is special, man," said Grambling coach Freddie Murray. "She flirts with quadruple-doubles every single night. She very rarely gets the credit that she deserves. You all just saw the one time she did score a quadruple-double. We see it on a regular basis."
While Hill admitted that she has "no idea who that is," when asked about Morris, Murray is fully aware of what the Baylor freshman is capable of doing. He compared it to this year's national championship football game, when Alabama freshman backup quarterback Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench in the second half to lead the Tide to a 26-23, come-from-behind win over Georgia.
"These players are recruited for a reason, whether it happens at the beginning of the season, the end of a season, in the tournament. They're just waiting for an opportunity," Murray said. "Alexis Morris is a special player. We're going to have to be dialed into her (Friday), because she can pose some problems for us."
Seventh-seeded Michigan (22-9) faces No. 10 seed Northern Colorado (26-6) in the first game at 4 p.m., with the two winners squaring off on Sunday for a berth in the Sweet 16 and a trip to Lexington, Ky., for the regional rounds.
"Upsets happen all the time because teams take 15 seeds, lower seeds, for granted," Brown said. "That's how you get upset. I feel like you have to play to the height of your potential every time, or you're going to get beat."
