MABEN — Several months after ending a senior season at West Oktibbeha County High School that earned her recognition as The Dispatch Small Schools Girls Basketball Player of the Year, Shamia Robinson is starting over.
Robinson is learning how to wake herself up for summer classes at Mississippi State, where she will play basketball this fall. She”s living on campus, so she can no longer rely on her mother to wake her up.
She also isn”t accustomed to being surrounded by so many people. She has a roommate, and her Bulldog teammates aren”t far away.
There are so many adjustments, and the fall semester — not to mention Bulldog Saturdays — hasn”t started.
Robinson also has had to add weightlifting to her workout regimen.
“It”s like I went from not lifting weights in high school to lifting every one,” said Robinson, who gets especially sore from leg exercises.
Welcome to a life most incoming college freshmen athletes experience where everything is different. Academics. Weight training. Conditioning. Level of play. Size of players.
Not that Robinson expects it to be a problem.
“I got my mind set on going in and doing what I got to do and become a success,” said Robinson, who averaged 17 points as a senior at West Oktibbeha. “Even though I was the best on my high school team, I don”t think it matters. (Now) I”m just a player that has a lot of space to become better.”
Said Sheila Bailey, Robinson”s coach this past season, “She”s adjusting very well to college life. The basketball. The team. I really don”t see her having any problems.”
This past season, Robinson”s ability to lead others ranked as high as her improved ballhandling and shooting.
After sitting out the opening weeks of the 2010-2011 season — she had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in her left knee — she saw all the things she was doing wrong. All the things Bailey told her she needed to do to lead Lady Timberwolves — run the offense, get in position, watch what she does because her teammates look up to her.
“She understood where the coaches were coming from,” Bailey said. “She was really motivational to the players, telling them what they were doing wrong and trying to motivate them.”
Robinson”s play was an integral reason why West Oktibbeha went undefeated in district play before losing to Coffeeville in the first round of the Mississippi High School Activities Association”s Class 1A North State tournament.
The 5-foot-8 Robinson likely will play small forward at MSU. She is one of five players in the incoming freshman class.
“Shamia has enough ability that if she has great work ethic and pays attention to what we”re asking her to do — just focus on fundamentals — she will make a contribution,” MSU women”s basketball coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said. “There”s no questions in my mind. She has enough athletic ability.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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