For four years and 115 basketball games, alumnus Shala Crook staked her claim as the best point guard in Ball State women's basketball history. And now, after leading the team to its most successful season ever last year, Crook will be on the other side of the ball as she plays for the Reebok Lady Stars in the Cardinals' second -- and last -- exhibition game of the year.
A starter for three years, Crook ended her career at Ball State as the most successful player in school history -- totaling 68 wins, leading the team to its first-ever Mid-American Conference title and winning the MAC Defensive Player of the Year last year.
Not ready to leave Muncie, Crook remains eligible under NCAA regulations to practice with Ball State and her former teammates.
"I'm just looking to have fun with it," Crook said of tonight's exhibition game. "Just being out here practicing with them has been cool. But come game time, time for practice is over."
Freshman Dana Collins was brought in by head coach Tracy Roller with the hopes of filling Crook's shoes. Already the two have had their share of battles on the basketball floor in practice. So going into the game, Collins and Crook both know what the style of play will be like.
"I've just got to learn from experience that Shala is a top defender," Collins said. "(Reebok) is a team of former Division I players that just graduated. So I'm going to have to keep my team calm and go out and play our game."
After losing to the Reebok team last year by more than 20 points, Roller said Reebok is "going to be really tough." Touting two players taller than 6 feet 4 inches tall, the Cardinals will be hard-pressed to overcome the size difference. After last week's rebounding dominance against a Hungarian team that Roller said she thought was trying very hard, the team will have a much harder time against the physically-dominant Reebok team.
"We got 54 boards in the first exhibition game, and that's never happened," Roller said. "I don't know if it was just us or the Hungarians weren't as aggressive. With the size that Reebok brings in, we're going to find out real soon."
But the biggest reunion -- and possibly the biggest rivalry -- of the game will be the match between senior Tamara Bowie and Crook. The two have played together since high school, and besides a few AAU games, the two have always worked together, not against one another.
While Bowie said winning the game would be more about bragging rights between the two Michigan natives than many other things, Crook wouldn't hint towards any form of trash talking.
Roller, however, said she knows better.
"I'd bet there is some 'smack' being talked between them right now," she said.
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