Photo credit: GW women’s basketball
By Liam O’Murchu (@Liam_0__)
Year two of the Nya Robertson show starts on Monday after a long offseason of waiting. The sophomore guard took the Atlantic 10 by storm last season in her freshman year, winning the A10 Sixth Woman of the Year award while also being named to the A10 All-Rookie Team.
But this year she is looking to take it to the next level and show that she is among the elite players in the Atlantic 10. How is she going to do that? The first step is to keep doing what’s gotten her this far: having fun.
“[The basketball court] is her playground.” GW head coach Caroline McCombs said. “She is somebody that can be who she is when she’s on the basketball court and have fun and just be free. So it’s really exciting to watch her grow in that space.”
The freedom that Robertson plays with isn’t something that can be taught and it’s easy to see that freedom seep into her game. There may not be another player quite like her who can take over the game at the drop of a hat, just as she did in her third collegiate game against Howard.
In the first two games of the season last year she was a combined 4-17 from the field and 2-10 from three. Then she stepped on the floor at Burr Gymnasium and took over. 27 points, four assists and two steals later, she and everyone else knew she’d arrived. The recipe for success that night was simpler than you may think. It wasn’t a complicated pre game ritual, nor was it a lucky pair of shoes.
“I was feeling it during warmups so therefore I could go off.” Robertson said.
From there, Robertson’s stock only rose. Despite coming off the bench for every game but one, she led the team in scoring with 14.4 points per game and scored the tenth-most three pointers in a single season in program history with 68.
As the season progressed, she earned the respect of opposing coaches, who started gameplanning to stop her. This came with decreased production at certain points, but one thing became clear: Robertson was still going to get her shots. She led the team in field goal attempts last season with 370 and I would expect that sort of volume shooting to be similar this year.
But the attention from opposing defenses will be turned up a notch this year now that other teams know what Robertson can do. She was named to the preseason All-A10 Second Team and knows that she will be circled on scouting reports this year.
“People are coming for my back, I have to watch out.” Robertson said.
McCombs and her staff recognize this and are looking for her teammates to step up on days when Robertson is getting blanketed by the opposing defense. However, the opportunities will still be there for the Fort Worth, Texas native.
“She’s gonna get her shots within our offense.” McCombs said. “That’s how we run our offense. It’s just the ability to take the right kind of shots in our offense so her percentage is what we need it to be.”
The joy that Robertson plays with is visible when you see her play, and her lighthearted attitude is infectious to her teammates and coaches. She loves to joke around in the locker room and is always looking to lighten the mood.
“I just try to get everyone in a happy spirit and joke around a little bit with them just so they can come to the court and be happy.” Robertson said.
Sometimes the jokes continue into practice and get dangerously close to affecting what’s happening on the floor. But just like that, Robertson is locked in and dominating.
“That’s what you love about her.” McCombs said. “When she comes in, she goes from zero to 100. She can just turn it on like nobody else.”
Beyond intangibles, Robertson is an elite offensive player. Her ability to score at all three levels makes her a serious threat in every single game she plays but the next step is opening up the game for her teammates. It is no longer a secret that she can pour buckets in and will her team to victory on her own. But if she can up her assist numbers and take higher quality shots, the Revolutionaries have the pieces to make a run at a conference championship. She’s made a concerted effort to slow down her pace and be more cerebral in her approach to the game this offseason, and the hope is that will open up other aspects of her game for herself and her teammates.
Everyone knows that Robertson will be key in the Revolutionaries success this year as they work to bring the program back to its previous glory. Whether her role is to be the primary scorer or the primary joke teller (or maybe both), she will enjoy her time hanging out with her friends and playing the sport she loves.
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