Sometimes, it’s a perfectly timed smile in the huddle or a not-so-perfectly-timed dance move while receiving instruction in practice. Regardless, Texas Southern sophomore guard Aylasia Fantroy somehow brings calm to her coach.
It’s the silly things TSU coach Vernette Skeete references.
“Sometimes I go so hard, and she helps me keep the calm and bring the lightness to it,” Skeete said of her star player. “I’m teaching something in practice and she is over there doing the Stanky Legg and I don’t know what.
“But the difference is some kind of way she heard me and she comes out and does exactly what I want her to do. She has been a pressure relief for me. That’s her vital role in this.”
Just hearing her coach, who is seated next to her in a large auditorium with one reporter 10 feet away, gush about how Fantroy brings levity to moments brings about a smile followed by lots of laughter.
“It feels good. I’m going to be me,” Fantroy said to the Defender. “I’m a very goofy person with a big personality. I try to contain it but it just comes out. Like Coach said, we will be over there learning a play or something and I will be doing a dance, but I’m still locked in.”
And locked in Fantroy has been this season.
Fantroy, who arrived from Ohio University via the transfer portal this season, has been the light in almost every way possible in helping the Lady Tigers to a remarkable 11-0 start in SWAC play. The Palestine native has been exactly what the Tigers need when they need it this season, whether that is slashing to the basket, pulling up for a necessary 3, or coming up with a big stop on defense.
She is just finding a way to get it done.
“She knows when we are in a rut, she knows we’ve got to have that basket. I don’t have to coach that in her,” said Skeete, whose team opened conference play with 11 straight wins before dropping back-to-back games during a recent swing through Louisiana where the Tigers suffered losses to Southern and Grambling State. “I call a play and she knows what time it is. And she finishes the same way every single time and you can’t teach those things. Those things are internally inside of you and it’s so fun because she hasn’t failed us yet in that moment.”
Fantroy says she lives for those moments. She always has since her days at Palestine High School and playing AAU ball.
“But I think coming in as a freshman, my freshman year it was a little different because I was the youngest and I was playing with a lot of older people, so I didn’t want to try to step into something that I wasn’t ready for,” Fantroy said of her one season at Ohio U. “But I think now that I’m a sophomore and I have a little more experience; yeah.”
Her confidence has grown now that she is at TSU and back closer to home. Fantroy initially took her talents to the small town of Athens, Ohio, where she contributed significantly to the Bobcats as a true freshman last season. But the distance and the cold weighed on her, eventually convincing her to jump into the transfer portal.
“I knew going into it that it was a good distance from home. It was like an 18-hour drive,” Fantroy said. “It was snowing like crazy and they wouldn’t cancel class. I was like, ‘What is this, it’s snowing outside and they aren’t canceling class?’
“I just don’t think we could get going like we needed to and it was just hard to play and fight through that.”
The 5-foot-11 Fantroy also felt her game was more restricted because her role was more defensive-minded post player at OU. She is now a shooting guard with the Tigers, and she can create from the perimeter.
“I feel like here I have a more free role and it allows me to be more of who I am and get more done,” Fantroy said. “I feel like coming here was a good space because it’s like I’m not contained. Coach Skeete lets me do me and let us do us, for sure.”
Fantroy leads the Tigers in scoring and ranks eighth in the SWAC with 12.4 points. She also ranks fourth in the league in steals with 2.4 per game and a total of 54 on the season while shooting an impressive 49% from the floor in SWAC play. Fantroy has knocked down some clutch 3-pointers to help lift the Tigers to SWAC wins, but she is shooting just 24% from long range.
But her coach believes in her perimeter skills.
“She can knock down that 3. You leave her open and that’s going to be a problem,” Skeete said. “She didn’t even like shooting it before she got here and now everybody is rising up with the threes in the air as soon as she is getting ready (to take the shot).
“She is trusting her mid-range game and she is hunting her offense more offensively. She is a dominant figure here and she knows … I don’t have to tell her and this is the difference … I don’t have to tell her it’s time. When we are down, she instinctively knows to get the ball and finish.”
And because of those instincts Fantroy and the Tigers are currently experiencing unprecedented success.
“Even coming from Ohio, we weren’t winning there, and then in preseason we had a pretty tough lineup and we weren’t winning,” she said of the Lady Tigers’ 1-10 non-conference record. “But I didn’t give up on it. I could see from each game that we were growing and Coach Skeete, after every game even though we were losing you could see the spark in her eye like she knows she has something here. So it was nice to be able to build up off of that.
“Then we came into SWAC time and it was like we’re ready. And now we are getting stuff done.”
Aylasia Fantroy
Position: Guard
Height: 5-11
Hometown: Palestine, Tx.
Major: Psychology
Minor: Kinesiology
Post-basketball plans: Sports Psychologist
She said it: “I know athletes understand athletes and it’s a big toll on your mental health and it’s a lot to deal with. So I feel like me going through it is a good way for me to give back and help people who are going through the same thing if I can understand it.”
