OSU Women’s Basketball Freshman Feature

When Aaliyah Patty first started her high school basketball career, she spent a lot of time watching her teammates from the bench. Her first two years playing she struggled to earn time on the court, but little did she know her career was slowly beginning to take-off. When here name was called her junior year, she was ready to showcase her talent, and Ohio State came calling her.

Patty, who is one of five freshmen on the Ohio State women’s basketball team. The Chicago native is slowly starting to pick up a role as a key contributor. She quickly noticed the fast pace of Division I basketball and admitted the competition in college is even tougher. But deep down she knows if she continues the path she is on, she will be ready for the challenge of carrying coach Kevin McGuff and Ohio State’s NCAA hopes into the future.

“Now everyone here has a purpose,” she said. “You really have to take that step forward to be great.”

Patty’s dynamic playmaking ability played a very important role in her astonishing high school career at Montini Catholic High School. After scoring 1,138 points, averaging 14.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, blocking 77 shots and 62 steals, Patty was then ranked as the nation’s №18 post player, according to ESPN’s rankings. Patty led the Broncos’ to third place Class 4A finish last season to conclude her senior year

With recruitment attention from a plethora of programs across the country, Patty eventually weighed the pros and cons of her options to come down to her top 5 schools which were narrowed down her collegiate options to OSU, Mizzou, Wisconsin, University of Michigan and Penn State. Shortly after she decided to visit OSU in November of 2017, she made her decision to commit to OSU in December.

This type of success, becoming one of the top five players in the state of Illinois, wasn’t always the case. It’s interesting that at one point in high school Patty wasn’t certain what way her career would go athletically. This was because Patty had other talents and also a gifted softball player, playing first baseman, and pitcher. It wasn’t until her AAU coach told her to try out for the team and that he had a spot for her. Didn’t start taking basketball serious until 8th grade when she first went to a tryout and found out she had another talent other than softball. Until that point most people couldn’t have imagined that she would ever be this good at basketball playing at a Division I school.

Patty credits her father, and her brother for training with her putting up shots in the gym. Her father, Anthony, played in college as well as her older brother A.J. who had a college career, at JUCO power Vincennes and later Murray State and Minnesota State. Patty has plays with confidence and toughness on the court and it is starting to show early in her collegiate career.

Patty admits the transition to college has sometimes been a challenge but she’s learning time management balancing athletics and academics, but she says her older teammates have been there to guide her and add to her success.

“They all know what it takes playing at the college level,” she stated. “Learning from them telling me what I need to do to be good at this level and they’re great leaders because of that.”

Because they’re working to get her where she needs to be there is no doubt that if her success continues she will be able to achieve her goal of making it to the WNBA or overseas in the future. She has unbelievable potential and is capable of being a great player on this team in the future.

Game Notes vs Cincinnati

· Freshman Dorka Juhász accomplished her fourth double-double with game highs of 17 points and 13 rebounds and a season-high three steals.

· Graduate Adreana Miller recorded her 1,000th point of her career.

· Junior Jensen Caretti made a pair of threes and assisted Aaliyah Patty, finishing the day 3 for 3 from the three-point line

· Makayla Waterman also earned a career-high six assists

· Graduate Carly Santoro scored 10 points and has earned in double-points in four of the five games this season.

Trivia

Which two players on the Ohio State women’s basketball team are originally from European countries?

What current Ohio State women’s basketball player is the granddaughter of former Ohio State men’s basketball assistant coach Ben Waterman?