Nicole Scott leads Carson girls

The imagery will be nothing new to anyone who has watched Carson center Nicole Scott play basketball.

At 6-foot-2, Scott has held the ball with one hand high in the air, while several opposing guards are hopping up and down, trying futilely to get a successful swipe at the ball.

Or an opponent will try to drive into a lane and try to get off a shot over the towering Scott, who smacks away the offering out of bounds like King Kong swatting away planes atop the Empire State Building.

Such dominance can hardly go unnoticed and in Scott's case it didn't and on Nov. 9, 2005, she signed a National Letter of Intent with Eastern Washington, of the Big Sky Conference.

But such talent, of course, surely leaves footprints, and for the 18-year-old Scott those footprints trace back to when she was a freshman playing varsity basketball and varsity volleyball.

Having begun playing basketball in the sixth grade, Scott was just doing what she enjoyed - competing - when the first recruiting letter arrived.

"It was January of my freshman year," said Scott. "It was a letter from Utah Valley State. It was weird at first. I definitely didn't expect it. I was never, 'Yep, that's going to be me,' or something."

The letters kept arriving - Long Beach, Cal, Oregon State, the University of Miami, Santa Clara, Cal-State Fullerton, Manhattan, Vermont - and Scott just kept filing them away, slipping them into sheet protectors and into a binder. Then another binder.

Scott never looked at herself as such a talent, but...

"Getting college letters, I thought that maybe I was better than I saw myself being," she said.

No kidding.

Rosella Nunez, a senior point guard for the Lady Senators, began playing basketball in the Carson recreational league with Scott in middle school and remembers well how the universities courted her teammate and friend.

"Sometime in practice she'd bring a letter with her and I'd be, 'Oh, which one is that one from today?'" Nunez said. "I think playing on the Jam on It (basketball academy) tournament teams, so many college scouts get to see you play that it opens up a lot of opportunities. You get a lot of looks from it."

Nunez said that although she knows about the binders, she's never seen them.

"Nicole doesn't (boast) about her accomplishments," Nunez said. "She quiet. She doesn't want to say too much about it. She's proud of her accomplishments, but she's not cocky and doesn't show off. She's confident in herself."

Sometimes letting your actions speak for you is more than enough. Take Carson's second game with Hug this year, when the upstart Hawks, whom Carson thrashed 63-21, were poised to pull a big upset.

That was all well and good - just as long as it didn't happen on Scott's watch. Playing with an angry look on her face and with intensity to burn, Scott pumped in 33 points and hit two free throws which sent the game into overtime and eventually ended up in Carson's favor.

"Nicole had motivation not to let that loss happen," Nunez said. "She really stepped it up. She posted up huge that game. She hit those pressure free throws to get us into overtime. She showed a lot of leadership as well."

Ask first-year Carson coach Ric Garcia what kind of player Scott is and he'll tick off several answers.

"She's the kind of player that you'd like every night for her to get 20 points and 15 rebounds," Garcia said. "She's a great athlete. Obviously Eastern Washington thought so - to sign her. She has a great upside."

Garcia said that even though Scott missed over six weeks of basketball conditioning because of an ankle injury she sustained in volleyball and didn't begin playing until Dec. 19 in a tournament in San Diego, she's still managed to average over 12 points and eight rebounds a game this season.

But sometimes numbers don't tell the whole story. How big can 13 points be? If you back it up with defensive play, it leaves quite an impression on opposing players and coaches.

Damonte Ranch coach Debby Hellen had this observation following Carson's 44-28 victory over the Mustangs on Jan. 31.

"Our players didn't come out and shoot the ball. They looked intimidated by Scott," Hellen said. "Courtney Kollasch didn't score. She's 16 points a game. Carson put Scott on her the whole game. She had a great defensive game."

It was another one of those games where Scott drew "Ooohs" and "Ahhs" from spectators when she played Godzilla and spiked basketballs out of bounds like so many puny fighter jets.

Scott is aware that while such vulgar displays of power can titillate spectators, they don't thrill Garcia.

"I know he'd prefer that we don't block shots, because most blocked shots go out of bounds," Scott said. "He'd prefer they try and shoot around us. If they make it, they make it. I haven't always done it. Sometimes the adrenaline takes over and I just can't help it."

After all, if you have a high-performance motor, sometimes it's difficult not to put the pedal to the metal.

"I've been tough on her and she's accepted it well," Garcia said. "She's gotten used to the team and the team has gotten used to her. She's one of the reasons why we're winning (Carson finished the regular season second in the Sierra League, 15-13 overall). At 6-2, she's proven that when she wants to clear out a lane, she can do it. She has great leaping ability and hand-eye coordination. If you throw it up there, she'll catch it.

"If she gets in a groove and things go her way, she can put points on the board - like those 33 against Hug."

Don't get the impression that Scott is a finished product. Garcia said her 3-point shooting touch has yet to return to where he'd like it. But she has made some adjustments on an early liability.

"Part of her adjustment has been with foul trouble. She used to foul regularly in the first part of the season," Garcia said. "She adapted to that well and in the second half of the season she hasn't fouled out."

A lot of coaches would take a pure athlete like Scott and run her till the wheels come off, but not Garcia.

"I think our offense restricts her a little," Garcia said. "And sometimes she wants too share the ball too much. Sometimes I'd like her to put the team on her back. That's just the selfish coaching side of me."

Scott is more concerned with team play than individual performance, but is aware that other teams usually target her first and foremost. Which is fine with her.

"When a lot of teams are more concentrated on me, it opens up a lot for (5-foot-10 senior forward) Sinead (McSweeney)," Scott said. "She'll start scoring and then they have to pay attention to both of us.

"Coach says there's a lot of attention on me. I see that as a good thing. If they're so worried about me, then they're not going to see the rest of the players on the floor. Someone will be open if they focus on me."

Garcia said that there's been some change of focus in recent practices in preparation for tonight's first-round Northern 4A regional playoff game against McQueen (at 7 p.m.).

"I told the kids that we'd go as far as she (Scott) takes us," Garcia said. "If she plays great, we'll go far. If not, we'll get stopped early. We're not a team blessed with a lot of scorers. The kids look up to her. She likes to direct and tell people where to go, as a good center does. She's a good leader out there, the captain that she is."

Players don't necessarily have to like their leaders, but that's not an issue with Scott.

"Nicole has a way with freshmen and seniors alike," Garcia said. "She's comfortable with anyone. She'd a kid you can't stay mad at very long. You can't make it two days without her making you laugh. She has a big heart and she tries to please."

Nunez takes it a step further.

"Off the court Nicole is a bit off a goofball," Nunez said. "She's fun to be around. If she has fun, you can't help but laugh."

If she's around that is.

"She works a lot of hours," Nunez said. "She had two jobs over the summer. It's awesome to have the kind of motivation to go to work right after practice. Practice is kind of tough."

Scott owns a Dodge Neon and works at Carson Dodge and Subway to pay for the payments and insurance. It's the kind of work ethic she must continue to show if she's to realize her dream of playing in the WNBA.

Eastern Washington has given her a full-ride scholarship and offers what she's looking for in academics - a fully accredited athletic training program, so she can pursue a medical career in sports if basketball doesn't work out in the long run.

But don't count her out on her WNBA dream. You never know when a letter might arrive unexpectedly and someone at the next level might take an interest.

"The sky's the limit," Garcia said of Scott's potential. "She'll learn a lot. It's a good environment with good opponents to play. At that level she'll either sink or swim. And I think she'll be swimming."