College basketball: Lady Falcons making meteoric rise out of the depths

March 02, 2010 9:06 PM

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BY JOEL A. ERICKSON

Callie Norris never expected a call.

Relaxing on the first day of her honeymoon, basketball had to be pretty low on her list of priorities.

But first-year UTPB head coach Adam Collins needed talent.

“I just got here, and I don’t have any players,” Collins said. “I want you to come help us out.”

After her freshman year at UTPB, Norris had transferred to McMurry University. Playing for the Lady Falcons had been a frustrating exercise in futility, and the Permian graduate didn’t consider coming back to the team even after coming back to Odessa to be with her fiancé.

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The streak started before Norris ever enrolled at UTPB.

At the end of the 2005-06 season, the Lady Falcons took the court in the semifinals of the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament with a gift-wrapped berth in the NAIA Tournament on the line.

To make the tournament, the third-seeded Lady Falcons only had to knock off seventh-seeded Texas College, a team UTPB had blown out in both meetings during the regular season.

Led by former head coach John Hufford, UTPB lost 79-73.

And that loss started a 25-game losing streak, a stretch that included an abysmal 0-23 season, Norris’s first on campus.

“When you’re losing, the stress comes on and off the court,” Norris said. “Everybody was fighting on the court, at the hotels.”

The Lady Falcons followed their 0-23 stinker with a 2-25 effort that ended Hufford’s tenure at UTPB.

Collins wanted to change that culture.

“One of the biggest things in the world is attitude,” Collins said. “And the attitude, and culture, here was to go out, play a game, eat some food and laugh it off after getting beat by 25, 30 points.”

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Norris is the only Lady Falcons player left who remembers the losing.

Two short years after UTPB finished a season 2-25, the third-seeded Lady Falcons (15-12) return to postseason play at 2:30 p.m. Thursday against sixth-seeded Texas A&M International.

“Last year, we were excited when we won,” sophomore point guard Tammy Acosta said. “This year, it’s like we’re supposed to win.”

Acosta has played a big part in UTPB’s turnaround. Recruited by Collins last year out of El Paso Americas, the sophomore has been the team’s star since she stepped on campus. At 14.3 points, 4.7 assists and 29.6 minutes played per game, Acosta is the kind of player who can take over games.

In Acosta’s first season at the point, the Lady Falcons finished 7-19. At times, the losses frustrated a brand-new UTPB roster unaccustomed to losing.

Norris brought her teammates back from the brink.

“Last year, when some people were ready to hang their heads, she was one of the people who told her teammates we were heading in the right direction,” Collins said.

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Fights and flare-ups happen to any team.

But this Lady Falcons’ squad has handled their fights differently than the players who suffered through the nightmare.

“Most teams, it takes them a long time to find team chemistry, but we have it,” junior guard Miesha Blackshear said. “With most new teams, you have times where people get into it, and our coach lets us get into it, then drop it after that.”

Another influx of talent — Blackshear, a Howard College transfer who leads the nation with 4.6 steals per game, is the crown jewel of a second solid recruiting class — has bolstered the Lady Falcons’ roster.

But the biggest shift has been the Lady Falcons’ mentality.

Halfway through the Heartland Conference season, the Lady Falcons dropped four consecutive games and killed the momentum built by a six-game winning streak. Under the old mentality, UTPB should have crumbled.

This time the Lady Falcons responded by winning four consecutive road games without the services of injured starter Micaela Jackson, who fractured her foot.

At UTPB, the culture has changed.

“Back then, it was just something to get involved in,” Norris said. “Now, it feels like more of a program, more so than just a team.”

A program on the rise.

THE BASICS

>> What: First round, Heartland Conference women’s basketball tournament.

>> Who: No. 3 UTPB (15-12) vs. No. 6 Texas A&M International (5-22).

>> When: 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

>> Where: St. Mary’s Bill Greehey Arena, San Antonio.

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Heartland Conference Tournament

At St. Mary’s Bill Greehey Arena,

San Antonio