There’s Allisha Gray, a former player of the year in high school, missing a meaningless shot in an exhibition game that her North Carolina women’s basketball team will win handily.
She’s a freshman guard who’s shown promise and only lost four games during her high school career. There will be far more important shots. She doesn’t need to fret about one wayward three-pointer.
But she thinks she does. She churns past the Wingate defense, scoops up a loose ball and kisses a layup off the glass.
Gray misses another shot later in the first half. Churn, scoop, layup. She does this again minutes later.
“(That’s) what I love about Allisha,” associate head coach Andrew Calder said, praising Gray’s effort. “That’s a great job that she did there.”
The 6-foot native of Sandersville, Ga., led the Tar Heels with 15 points and four steals in their 93-61 drubbing of Wingate Tuesday night. Relative to high school, the college game moves at Mach speed, Gray said, but the pace of NCAA basketball didn’t appear to unnerve her.
She’s gotten help during UNC’s cutthroat practices, where “everybody plays to win and everybody hates to lose.” It’s hard not to sprint, to play physically, to dive for loose balls when teammates like sophomores Xylina McDaniel and N’Dea Bryant take every play to heart, she said.
“Our motto is to just win and go out there and give it all you’ve got,” Gray said.
Gray missed most of her senior year with a knee injury but still managed to garner an All-America honorable mention in 2013. The fourth-best guard in her recruiting class, according to ESPN HoopGurlz, Gray averaged 32 points in Washington County High School’s run to the state final in 2011-12.
