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Thursday, March 20, 2014

Tyra Buss- Illinois' All-Time Scorer

By David Woods of IndyStar.com

MOUNT CARMEL, Ill. – Either you believe in Tyra Buss, or you don't.
Someone who averages 47 points a game? Who is a champion in tennis, track, baseball, and punt, pass and kick? Who ranks No. 1 in her class? Who attends Catholic church on Sunday and signs autographs for adoring little girls after each game?

Buss' own father, Tim, conceded it all strains credulity."Sometimes you look at it, 'Am I in this dream here?'" he said. "It's mind-boggling when you talk about the numbers and look at some of that stuff. It's just hard to imagine that that's your daughter."

Indiana University fans might imagine what it will be like to have the reigning, record-setting Illinois Ms. Basketball next season. Yet it could be exaggeration to suggest she will be to the IU women what Cody Zeller was to the men.

Buss, 17, is a high school senior at Mount Carmel (pop. 7,300), which is along the Wabash River and about 110 miles southwest of Bloomington. She is listed at 5-7, probably stands 5-6 and is not ranked among the nation's top 100 prospects in the 2014 class. Zeller is 7-0, played in the McDonald's All-America game and became a No. 4 pick in the NBA draft.

"I think it might be unfair to call her our Cody Zeller," Hoosier women's coach Curt Miller said. "But we needed a face to our program. We need a name to give us some buzz in our state and in this community."

TYRA BUZZ
Buss is about as Hoosier as it gets for someone on the other side of the border. She was born in Vincennes and plays for the only Illinois school in the otherwise all-Indiana Big Eight, which includes Zeller's alma mater, Washington. Mt. Carmel also produced Archie Dees, a two-time Big Ten MVP for Indiana in the 1950s.

She wasn't difficult to recruit. She liked what she called "one big happy family" at IU, the only college to which she made an official visit.

Those close to her said her biggest adjustment won't be to the Big Ten, but to separation from family. Her father is the school superintendent, and her mother, Kelly, is her track coach. One brother, Tyler, 27, is the boys basketball coach and her other brother, Kyle, 23, is the assistant coach. Tyra has been dating her boyfriend, Levi Laws, 17, since Feb. 5, 2010 (they mark the date).

Buss said Miller promised to turn around the program, and the Hoosiers have exceeded expectations this season with an unprecedented 14-0 start and a 17-6 record. Average home attendance is 2,770, an increase of 28 percent over last year.

That's without Tyra Buzz. "I want to be part of a program that I could help change," she said. "A lot of people were like, 'Don't you want to go to Connecticut or somewhere like that?' I was like, 'No, I want to go somewhere we can beat Connecticut.'"

Miller likened her to Jordan Hulls, whose skills and work ethic influenced IU's culture. But even Miller acknowledged that Buss' numbers "are almost unbelievable."

Just as unbelievable is what she has done in this football town, where the Golden Aces have played in three state championship games during the 2000s and brother Kyle was an all-state quarterback. At Taco Tierra or Norm's Barber Shop, they talk Tyra as much as football. Fans drive from miles around to see her play.

In a Jan. 13 game against Princeton, the No. 1 Class 3A team in Indiana, there was a sellout crowd of 1,400 in Mount Carmel's 86-year-old gym. Nine hundred more watched on a webcast, a bigger audience than for a football playoff game that Mount Carmel lost 71-70.

"That was a one-for-the-ages kind of game," said Kyle Peach, director of broadcasting for the station run by Wabash Valley College.

Mount Carmel lost to Princeton 70-69, and Buss scored 41 but shot 11-of-34. When the same teams met Dec. 28, she scored a career-high 66 in an 84-82 tournament loss at Fort Branch, Ind. That game, following 60 points the day before, made her the all-time leading scorer in Illinois.

With 4,745 points, she is No. 2 in the history of U.S. girls basketball, behind Adrian McGowen, Goodrich, Texas, who scored 5,424 from 2003-06. McGowen, a McDonald's All-American, played one season at Texas A&M and averaged 3.3 points a game.

Buss' career has more closely resembled that of Jackie Stiles, a 14-time state track champion from Claflin, Kan., who once averaged 46.3 points. Stiles became the leading scorer in NCAA history and led Southwest Missouri State to the 2001 Final Four.

Thus the lingering question: How good is Buss? Is she a McGowen? Or a Stiles?
"The one thing people can't measure is how big her heart is," said her club coach, Phil Kessler of Indiana Elite Swish. "The kid is fearless."
 
ATH-A-LETE
A liability is Buss' slight frame. Although muscular, she has never weighed as much as 120. Perpetual activity has not permitted many pounds.

In the fall, she plays tennis – her regular-season singles record is 89-0 – and runs cross-country. In winter, she lifts weights every other day, wears strength-building shoes on other days, and runs to prepare for track. Last spring, she was fifth in Class 2A in the 800 meters – her time of 2 minutes, 14.48 seconds would have placed fifth in Indiana's one-class state meet – and sixth in the 300-meter hurdles. Summer is for AAU basketball.

On spring break, she would run on a Florida beach or locate a track. She doesn't go many hours without touching a basketball. Days off are anathema.

"Sometimes we just have to say, 'No, this day you're taking off. You've got to relax, watch TV, go to a movie, something,'" Buss' mother said. "It's hard for her."

Lack of athleticism is not an issue. Her high school coach, Tim Willis, said Buss inevitably will become fitter and stronger. In a recent 61-point game in which she scored 44 by halftime, she was more impressive as a dribbler and passer.

"I've been saying that for a long time," Willis said.
Buss didn't become who she is by dominating girls. Older brothers "toughened me up a bit," she said. From a basement basket to driveway games, little sister kept up.

That's how she came to be on boys teams at the YMCA, beating her future boyfriend's third-grade team for a league championship. She played shortstop and batted leadoff for a Little League baseball team that qualified for the state tournament. Mount Carmel won a district championship 1-0, and guess who had the winning hit.

Move over, boys. Make room for Tyra.
"She always had her nose in what we were doing. There was no getting rid of her," brother Tyler said. "I'd like to say we took it easy on her, but there came a time there when I don't even know if we were taking it easy on her."

Tyra's competitiveness manifests itself at family board games or in Madden NFL against her boyfriend. She long ago quit playing Laws one-and-one because that created conflict. When her father challenged her to break her practice record of 97 consecutive free throws made, she raised it to 102.

Buss fell during a regional race in the 300-meter hurdles, quickly got up and ran – and qualified for state. In football, she finished second in the 2010 national punt, pass and kick contest held at site of the AFC Championship in San Diego. In summer basketball, she took a charge from someone who outweighed her by 90 pounds.

Perhaps most revealing was an incident involving tennis.
Her father was uneasy after driving the family's Dodge Caravan to Indianapolis, parking in a North Central High School lot and seeing Lexus after Lexus. Tyra pulled out her Walmart special to take on girls carrying backpacks of six fashionable rackets.

"She goes and beats three girls she had no business beating," Tim Buss said. "I mean, their parents were (upset). 'Who is this girl? She doesn't even have the right racket, the right clothes.'"

SEEKING A TITLE
One goal eluding Buss is a state finals appearance in basketball. She led Mount Carmel to an eighth-grade state championship, but that's not satisfying.

A 32-0 season ended last year in a third successive sectional loss to Teutopolis in 2A, the second-smallest of four classes. Not until afterward was it revealed that Buss, who was limited to 20 points, had her left arm pulled out of the socket in the previous game. She popped her shoulder back and kept playing.

"It was the most pain I've ever had," she said.
Mount Carmel (24-4) is host for this week's regional, the opening postseason round in Illinois. Willis said the Lady Aces are "starting to play a lot better," although they could again meet Teutopolis, ranked No. 4 in 2A, in next week's sectional at Casey, Ill.

Advance far enough, and Buss could reach 5,000 points. Not that she is counting.
"She has never mentioned any record to me. Ever," her father said.

She was featured in Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" as long ago as the magazine's Feb. 28, 2011 edition. But others, believing she is underappreciated, have devoted themselves to chronicling her achievements.

A family friend created tyrabuss.com, elaborating on her resume. Indianapolis resident Ryan Jenkins, a former Evansville sportscaster, updates @tyrabussnews on Twitter after every quarter of every game via texts from Peach.

Buss has endured it all: skepticism, trash talk, hard fouls, opponents' signs (The Buss Will Stop Here). After battling brothers, that's nothing. Her mother "was bawling" when she read Tyra's conciliatory Facebook post, replying to mean-spirited comments, after last year's season-ending defeat.
It's OK, Mom. Nothing new.

Of one coach, Tyra said: "The first time he saw me play (he said), 'She's just a little Barbie doll. She doesn't have game.'"

She has enough game to have helped Indiana Elite win multiple tournaments. And she was one of 20 girls invited to an Adidas elite camp in Suwanee, Ga.

She is 110th nationally, and 21st among point guards, in ESPN rankings compiled by Dan Olson. He said he evaluates 2,000 prospects a year, ranks 300 and has seen Buss play once in person and often on film. He conceded there is little difference between someone 75th or 150th.

"She's got this confidence about her," Olson said. "She's really good at the no-look pass, the French pastry stuff. She's got an air about her that she knows she can get it done. That's a good trait to have."
Miller said Buss will fit the Hoosiers' ball-screen offense, even though their best player is a freshman point guard, Larryn Brooks. Indiana could deploy Brooks and Buss together or bring the latter off the bench.

Miller said he wants his point guard to be in "attack mode" and that the Hoosiers feature 3-point shooting . Those are elements that characterize Buss.
"My game, I just get it and go," she said.

That is something everyone can believe.

U.S. high school girls basketball scoring leaders
Total points, career
5,424: Adrian McGowen, Goodrich, Texas, 2003-06
4,745: Tyra Buss, Mount Carmel, Ill. 2011-14
4,708: Victoria Vivians, Scott Central, Forest, Miss. 2011-14
4,506: Missy Thompson, Gibsland-Coleman, La. 1992-95
4,442: Judy Clark, Singer, La. 1993-96

Points per game, career
46.1: Geri Grigsby, McDowell, Ky. 1975-77
44.5: Adrian McGowen, Goodrich, Texas 2003-06
41.9: Amanda Wolke, Toledo Cumberland, Ill. 2003-06
38.3: Tracy Lis, Danielson Killingly, Conn. 1985-88
38.0: Tyra Buss, Mount Carmel, Ill. 2011-14

Points per game, season
60.0: Christy Cooper, Circleville, W.Va. 1988-89
53.8: Adrian McGowen, Goodrich, Texas 2004-05
49.6: Geri Grigsby, McDowell, Ky. 1976-77
46.9: *Tyra Buss, Mount Carmel, Ill. 2013-14
46.3: Jackie Stiles, Claflin, Kan., 1996-97
*-Entering Wednesday's game

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