“Get water, help your teammates out. Cheer them on.
“I think about that every day. I've come a long way.”
Durrett focused on honing her skills upon entering high school in Seneca, Ky., and things began to come easier. But she still benefited from her years of playing less-organized basketball in the park.
“That definitely made me tough,” Durrett said. “Going into high school, it definitely opened my eyes. I got a chance to play with bigger guys, and that helped me handle the bigger, stronger girls.”
Because she got a late start in organized basketball, she was never recruited very heavily by bigger, four-year schools as a high schooler.
Instead, she headed to Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tenn., to begin her collegiate career.
Durrett averaged 15.4 points and 7.8 rebounds last season, earning first-team All-American honors while leading her team to a top-10 national ranking.
So far at Oklahoma, she's playing about 13 minutes a game, averaging 5 points.
“Her level of instruction at the junior-college level was very, very good, but she had so much to learn coming in, and really didn't have any idea how talented she could be and where her game could take her,” Coale said.
“She got to junior college and began to figure that out, and has just scratched the surface of what she can do.”
