Miller Begins to Reach Her Potential With Titans : A Model Performer

Gena Miller is one of those women for whom the world has two questions: Are you a model and do you play basketball?

When you are 6-feet 3-inches, 145 pounds, and walk around in size 11 shoes--men’s size 11s--that kind of attention is rather difficult to avoid.

So, too, are the expectations.

Miller, despite her stylish and graceful demeanor, is not a model, but the backbone of Cal State Fullerton’s women’s basketball team.

When Miller arrived at Cal State Fullerton as a freshman last season, Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah was careful to paint her as someone with potential, not someone who was ready to step in right away.

By the time the Titans got into the thick of their conference schedule, Miller had become a starter. She still wasn’t much of an offensive player, and averaged only 7 points a game. Her specialty was blocked shots, and she finished with 76 last season, the 12th highest total among women’s major-college players.

This season, Jeremiah made no bones about saying that for the Titans to do well, Miller would need to score a lot more.

She has, and the Titans are off to an 11-2 start that includes a 10-game winning streak. Miller, a sophomore center, has averaged 19 points a game.

The highlight was Miller’s 38-point performance against UC Irvine on Jan. 7, which broke the 13-year-old school record for points in a game.

Nancy Dunkle had set the record of 37 in 1976. Robin Holmes tied it in 1986.

In her record-setting performance, Miller made 12 of 18 shots from the field and 14 of 19 from the line. She also had 12 rebounds and 4 blocks.

Miller might have been the person least impressed by her game.

“It was fun,” she said, “but it was a silent 38.”

It would have seemed to have been the game that marked her arrival. She had gone from project to defensive specialist to record-holder.

But in the next game, a 66-46 loss to Fresno State, Miller, playing against 6-foot 6-inch Simone Srubek, struggled with foul trouble and finished with only 10 points.

“I’m not used to shooting against someone who is taller than me,” Miller said after the game. “I didn’t play well at all.”

She is capable of having a tremendous game, and then a disappointing one on its heels.

“She’s a developing player,” Jeremiah said. “That’s what makes her so exciting to watch. . . . But everybody has to realize that she’s going to have up nights and down nights. She’s probably not going to get 38 again real soon.”

Miller’s size alone would have been enough to garner a scholarship. But she has other assets. She was a two-time Los Angeles City champion in the high jump at Crenshaw High School, twice finishing in the top four in the state championships.

In short, she has more athletic ability than many of the extraordinarily tall players one sometimes sees planted in the lane.

As Miller puts it, “I don’t want to be just a player who drifts back to catch a lob. I want to handle the ball, like a guard, play power forward and be a center, all in one.”

Those goals might be a bit lofty, but they nevertheless are her goals. The players she admires? Michael Jordan and Cheryl Miller.

She did not come to basketball easily.

“Ninth grade was the first time I touched the ball,” she said. “At that time, the coach had to drag me. He harassed me. I didn’t know how to play. But after our first game, I liked it.”

Still, no one suggests that Miller has less than a long way to go.

At 145 pounds, she is a frail thing in the lane, “a twig against the trees,” Miller says.

When people get the answers to the model/basketball player question, the next comment approximately is this:

“Well, then, we need to fatten you up.”

Miller says she tries and tries to gain weight, and swears she eats lots.

Even Jeremiah concedes that Miller is never going to be bulky.

But with a 38-point performance on her resume, things are not going to get easier for Miller.

“She’s going to be double-teamed a lot,” Jeremiah said. “She’s going to have to go up a notch. That’s where she’s at now.”