Louisiana UnLimited – Ty’Reona Doucet
One of the core values of college athletics is preparing student-athletes for success in their chosen fields, and Ty'Reona Doucet is one of the best examples in the entire Louisiana Athletics program.
The senior from Ville Platte, in addition to playing at the highest level in her five-year career for the Ragin' Cajuns Women's Basketball program, is active in preparation for a nursing career. That makes perfect sense, considering that "Ty in the Sky" has had more than her share of health issues since joining head coach Garry Brodhead's program.
"She may have stayed in the athletic training area more than on the court sometimes," Brodhead joked after Doucet's most recent stellar performance. In the Cajuns' 76-55 win over state and Sun Belt Conference rival ULM to wrap up the January portion of the schedule, Doucet scored a season-high 25 points and only missed three shots (10-of-13 from the field) while scoring 13 in the first half and 12 in the second.
She also had 14 rebounds, five on the offensive end, and blocked four shots on the way to her fourth straight double-double performance.
"I figured they (ULM) didn't match up well with me," said the Sun Belt coaches' preseason selection as Player of the Year. "I was expecting a lot of double-teams and stuff so I was prepared for it."
Preparation is an apt word for Doucet, and not just in basketball. She's already finished her bachelor's degree in kinesiology, and is currently taking prerequisite courses with plans to enter Louisiana's newly named College of Nursing and Health Sciences in the LHC Group-Myers School of Nursing.
"She's waiting for her white coat," Brodhead said. "She'll finish all the prerequisites this semester and next fall she'll be in the clinical program. Right now she's taking classes and labs. When we talked to the people in that program and asked what she should do, they highly recommended our nursing program.
"The great thing about Ty is that she's learned a lot, knowing how to work harder and be a team player. She's always cared about people. She's got a great heart, that's the thing I like most about Ty. She's kind-hearted, caring, and in nursing you have to have that type demeanor and she's got that character."
She's also got background experience that most nursing students don't, having fought through nagging injuries almost every season she's been in a Ragin' Cajun uniform. This year, it's a groin injury that hampered her through the first half of the year and continues to be an issue. It won't fully heal until after the season when the wear-and-tear of playing the pivotal post position in Louisiana's offensive and defensive attacks comes to an end.
The numbers, of course, make it hard to imagine that Doucet's not at full health. She's got five double-double performances in her last six games, after having only one in Louisiana's first 10 games, and the consistency in those games has been impressive – 12 points and 11 rebounds against UT Arlington, 23 and 10 against league favorite Troy in Louisiana's best league win so far, 16 and a season-high 18 boards against South Alabama, and 19 and 14 against App State prior to the ULM game.
"I think I'm getting my mojo back," Doucet said, using a term that's not exactly clinical nursing. "I know I'm having more fun with it. My career is coming to an end, so I'm starting to appreciate it more and I guess starting to play better.
"I know I always had it, but at the beginning of the season I wasn't playing to my potential. I was playing more finesse and not going as hard as I could. I knew doing that is more important in conference play."
In the last four games, Doucet has hit 31-of-51 shots (almost 61 percent), which was as many shots as she took in the previous eight games combined.
"In the third quarter (against ULM), we didn't shoot one three," Brodhead said. "We kept focusing on trying to get touches for Ty. That's what we were missing at App State (a 55-46 loss, Louisiana's only setback since the New Year despite Doucet getting the 19-and-14). We didn't get her the touches, and we shot 10 3-pointers and went 0-for-10, so this week we focused on that.
"She creates a lot of problems for a lot of teams that have to double-team her, and our kids are getting better on flashing and diving and doing things when she gets doubled. We had a lot of points in the paint (52) against ULM."
The recent surge has given Doucet a boost in the Cajuns' record book. Her 1,332 career points has her sixth in Louisiana history with fifth place (1,358, Teena Cooper, 1984-88) in the crosshairs, while her 887 rebounds already has her in second place all time behind Cooper's 1,082 total.
"If we get the ball inside, she's either going to get fouled and she's a really good foul shooter (75.7 this season), and if you don't foul her, she's going to make the shot," Brodhead said. "She uses the board really well, she's got great up-and-under moves. And that opens up the outside game for some of those jump shots that our guards can make."
She's also got 145 blocked shots after getting four more against ULM, the third-highest in school history and a stat that she clearly enjoys and which was a big part of her earning Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year honors last season. ULM had some early success driving the middle, but Doucet and her teammates shut that down in the second half (the Warhawks were 4-of-16 from the field in the final quarter).
"We tend to start off bad but we pick it up," Doucet said of her team's defensive effort against ULM. "We were letting them go to the middle, we knew what the problem was and we just locked up on that. My blocks, I think they give us momentum, give us energy. We're good at helping on defense, and on defense that's the best thing you can do."
"Our defense is based on not letting the ball go middle, mostly because of her," Brodhead said. "If teams go baseline, we'll have help and Ty's there to block shots. If it goes middle Ty has to step up, and when she steps up, if they miss the shot we may not get the rebound because she's up high. The second half (against ULM), I can't remember many middle drives when they scored."
Barring unforeseen circumstances, Doucet has seven regular-season Sun Belt games and a hopefully-deep run in the Sun Belt Tournament remaining. She goes into those averaging 16.2 points and 11.7 rebounds in league play, ranking her first in the league in rebounding.
"Right now my mindset is every rebound is mine," she said. "If our guards don't get it, I'm going to get it."
Brodhead, a long-time proponent of defense and rebounding, likes to hear that type of confidence. But he's not going to give a lot of outward praise and that's by design.
"When we were walking in (at the postgame press conference after the ULM game), we were talking about who was going to be mad," Brodhead said. "It's kind of a running joke, but it's how we are. I'm not going to talk good about her right now, because I don't want to make her happy. I need to keep her a little mad. But she is playing really, really good right now.
"Ty needs someone to push her. She's got so much potential in her, and that's going to be a good thing for her going forward. We really have a good relationship and we can do that to one another because we believe in one another. She's one of the better players to ever play in this program, and if she can continue to grow, fight through this and lead us, we can do some good things."
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