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Nicholls State sophomore forward Alisha Allen got her balance and began to dribble the ball full speed ahead.
Allen turned the corner and fought off a slew of defenders before setting her feet and firing a rocket shot into the goal, admiring her work as the ball rubbed up against the net before landing gently back onto the ground.
Sounds like the Louisiana Freshman of the Year is at it again for the Nicholls women’s basketball team, right?
Interpret however you wish, because Allen grew up not as a basketball player, but rather a soccer player on the grassy fields of Garland, Texas.
“I was really into soccer,” Allen said. “That was the sport I was most into when I was as a kid.”
What took Allen to her current status as one of the Southland Conference’s best basketball players is two-fold.
First, there was a little bit of Lady Luck. When Allen turned 13, she hit a large growth spurt, which made her one of the tallest children in her eighth grade class.
Second, there’s the always-prevalent nuisances of teenager peer pressure, as Allen wanted to be the same as all of her friends, who were also trading the soccer ball for the hardwood.
“I started growing, so I decided I’d want to play basketball,” Allen said. “You know when you get to eighth grade, you get to see all of the sports available all throughout the school, so I just wanted to play basketball, because I saw some of my friends playing it.”
Allen would be the first to admit she wasn’t a natural in her new craft, saying she just played for fun in the early days of her career.
The one person who always saw that extra bit of magic was Allen’s father, Jessie, who always envisioned his daughter having the skill set to be a collegiate player.
“I started playing, and my dad started telling me, ‘You know, you ought to practice, because basketball’s not just something you can do, you’ll have to work for it.’,” Allen said. “So I just started practicing every single day and he always saw that vision of me being here n being in college, playing basketball. I didn’t see it, I was just playing and having fun and doing my thing, but he always saw it and it did come true.”
Allen fielded several scholarship offers after an illustrious career at Naaman Forest High School in Garland, Texas where she averaged 12 points, six rebounds and five assists per game in her senior season.
It was during that time that she met her current coach, Nicholls women’s basketball coach DoBee Plaisance, who invited Allen to Thibodaux to visit the campus.
That visit ended her recruiting process.
“When I took my visit, I just knew this was the place for me,” Allen said. “Other schools, they’d tell me they wanted me, of course. But these people when I came here, they really took it to a different level, and I could tell they genuinely wanted me here, so I knew this was the place for me.”
It’s easy to see why Nicholls wanted Allen so badly.
In her first year on campus, she was named Louisiana’s Freshman of the Year, averaging close to 14 points per game.
Plaisance and Allen both say they expect more this year.
“She’s very talented, she’s a force to be reckoned with when she’s in the zone,” Plaisance said. “When she’s in the zone, she has all the abilities to just be one of the best of the best that ever played in the Southland.”
To get the sophomore “in the zone,” more often, Plaisance said she is working to make Allen a stronger player mentally.
Doing that is what the coach believes is the final step in her transition from role player to conference stardom.
It’s what Allen is working to achieve every day in practice, because in her own words, “being a freshman isn’t an excuse I can make anymore.”
“I just want to go hard, because I remember what it was like last year,” Allen said. “Last year, I had some pretty rough practices. I was a freshman and I didn’t really understand, but I remember being in the shoes of losing some of the games, and I don’t want to leave practice knowing that if we lose, it’s because of practice.”
The season is nearing and Allen’s set to get her second crack at college basketball.
But this time there will be no doubt that the ball going through the net will be a basketball n and Plaisance believes that will be a frequent occurrence.
“In practice, we do not have an answer for Alisha Allen. We simply do not,” Plaisance said. “When Alisha’s in the zone, we can’t stop her because of her athleticism, her ability to shoot from the outside and her ability to get to the rim and she can elevate. … We’re very excited for her, because we feel she’s destined to have a tremendous season.”
At 5-11, Nicholls State forward Alisha Allen is catching opponents’ attention. The soccer player turned hoops star is a leader of Nicholls women’s basketball team. COURTESY PHOTO
