It all comes back to the basics.
Many of Connie Morris’ earliest basketball memories involve tagging along to the gym with her grandfather, a high school coach in Nevada. When it was Connie’s turn on the floor, Eugene Hughes would drill the youngster in the fundamentals of the game.
Those lessons set the foundation for a standout high school career and remain in place into her senior year at the University of Hawaii.
“He’s super into fundamentals,” Morris said. “When I was in high school those were things he really emphasized. It’s little things that make a huge difference in the big scheme of it.”
A member of the Rainbow Wahine post rotation, the 6-foot-4 center has the designation as a returnee for the first time in her college career after making stops at Utah and Salt Lake Community College prior to enrolling at UH.
After making 23 starts as a junior, Morris has started 10 of UH’s 15 games this season and is averaging 5.9 points and 3.4 rebounds with a team-high 17 blocked shots, including a career-high six against Penn on Jan. 2.
She leads the Wahine (8-7, 1-1 Big West) with a .549 shooting percentage entering UH’s first conference homestand of the season against CSUN (2-13, 0-1) on Thursday and UC Riverside (9-7, 2-0) on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Developing a more efficient game in the paint can be traced in part to refocusing on the fundamentals.
“One thing (UH coach Laura) Beeman has always said is ‘just keep it simple,’” Morris said. “When I first got here I always wanted to twist, turn, all that kind of stuff. I’m just trying to work on simple drop step, simple hook, no-dribble type of things and that’s been a tremendous thing.”
Coming out of Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite, Nev. Morris played in 26 games and made a start against Stanford as a freshman at Utah in the 2011-12 season. She transferred to Salt Lake CC the following season and averaged 12.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and two blocks per game.
She was set to move on to Utah State, but had a change of heart when she started watching UH games. Beeman recalled it was actually one of UH’s worst games two years ago, a 61-42 loss at Cal State Fullerton, that played a role in Morris signing with the Wahine.
“Connie sat behind our bench and watched the interaction of the girls, watched how they continued to fight,” Beeman said.
Beeman got a call from Morris while at dinner later that night, “I said, ‘Please tell me that didn’t help you make your decision.’ And she goes, ‘Coach, I really like what I saw.’ ”
Morris spent her first summer in Hawaii acclimating to yet another change in scenery and is enjoying not being the new girl this season.
“I transferred every year and it’s finally nice to come back and be a returner and understand what Coach Beeman wants and not coming in and being a ‘freshman’ year after year,” Morris said.
Morris has also leaned on the support of her family through her journey. Bernice Morris, who played basketball and volleyball at Utah Valley State College, raised Connie and her older brother, Anthony, as a single mother and worked as an office manager at the elementary school her children attended. Morris’ grandparents also looked after the kids while her mom was at work and she had a chance to play for her grandfather as a senior in high school.
Morris said her family regularly makes the drive from Mesquite — a small town near the Arizona and Utah borders — to UH’s road games in Southern California, including last week’s win at Long Beach State.
“Sometimes they come out and surprise me and they just show up,” Morris said.
“It’s really supportive because they’ve never been those parents who were just pushing (basketball) on me. It’s always been, ‘It’s your choice.’ It’s just nice to see someone you love up there. Great game, bad game they still support you.”
