Central's Pittman packs a big punch in a small frame

Sadie Pittman succumbed to fear during her first few years on the basketball court.

Even when she'd race toward the basket all alone, she refused to take a shot. The speedster would wait for a teammate to catch up then pass the ball.

"She wouldn't shoot," said Pittman's mother, Linda Alford-Taylor. "I used to ask her all the time, 'Sadie, why won't you shoot the ball?' and she said, 'I'm afraid of missing.' She would get down there and she'd go and she'd just give it away. I would get so mad at her and I was like, you need to start shooting. She said she was afraid of missing."

Pittman, a third-grader at the time, slowly overcame the fear through drills and the gentle urging of Bill Knepp, her coach at the time.

"I tried to take every player I had and convince them that hey, you know what, if you don't shoot the ball, it's not going to go in," Knepp said. "When you're wide open, you need to take the shot. I also had them do shot drills through the year, and during the summer I also would give them shooting programs."

Central's Sadie Pittman attempts a shot against Rosati-Kain during the third quarter Saturday at Central. (Fred Lynch)

Pittman, now a senior at Central, no longer resembles the timid third-grader. She's the Tigers' leading scorer this season and the team's offensive catalyst.

"Everything we do pretty much goes through her," Central coach Sherri Shirrell said. "She distributes and takes the ball to the hole. The kids are learning that their hands had better be up and ready to catch the ball because she's going to get it to them."

Pittman's road to becoming a dominant point guard started the summer before she entered third grade. Her parents were divorced so she lived with her mother in Missouri during the school year and spent chunks of the summer in Michigan with her father. Playing basketball with her brothers during the summer in Michigan sparked her passion for the sport.

"The summer of me going into my third-grade year, that's when I first played in Michigan with my brothers, so I kind of brought it back here," Pittman said. "Kaylen Knepp from Jackson, she noticed and asked, 'Would you like to play on my team?' So her dad got a team together and it all started there."

Pittman's older siblings refused to take it easy on their little sister, so she immediately was thrown into the fire during that first summer.

Central's Sadie Pittman takes a shot during Saturday's game.

"Growing up with Sadie, she always never really let the fact she was a girl hold her back from competing with us in anything," said her brother Bartholomew Pittman. "It just seemed right for her to be right there playing. At first, she was kind of average, but as time progressed, of course, she got better. Out of us, I'm pretty sure she can beat everybody but me."

Pittman credits Knepp with helping her develop many of the skills she leans on today. She said he taught her how to handle the ball with both hands and deal with defensive pressure.

"He started me out and that's where I learned, doing drills all the time," the 5-foot-1 guard said about her ballhandling skills. "And being so short, it's not so hard. I'm close to the ball. I give him credit for almost everything."

Knepp said he used basic drills to help her develop her ability to dribble with her left hand. He would push her in practice to work with her left hand since she quickly showed skill with her right hand.

"What I saw with Sadie was that she just had some great quickness and a sweet, sweet attitude and got along real well with the other girls on the team," he said.

"That's what I was looking for. I was looking for somebody that was coachable, and she was, and at the same time had talent and was willing to be pushed to get better and better and better. That's what I saw in Sadie."

Pittman estimates that she overcame her fear of shooting by the sixth grade. She'd worked on her shot in practice and in the driveway and felt comfortable throwing up shots during games.

"I just keep working on it," Pittman said. "My shot was different at first, so I had to work to get it to where it had to be."

Pittman caught Shirrell's eye during junior high, and Central's varsity coach put Pittman on the varsity squad as a freshman. But Pittman ended up seeing most of her action on the junior varsity to gain experience. Shirrell installed Pittman as the team's starting point guard as a sophomore, and Pittman has played there ever since.

One of Pittman's biggest obstacles to overcome is her lack of height. She said she's 5-1, but she prefers the rare occasion where she's introduced before games as 5-6.

"It never fails, I'm always the shortest one," she said. "I just have to deal with it. I'm eating my green beans and everything and it's not working. But I have to know it's genetics because both my parents are about the same height as me. I know it's not going to get any better than this."

But Shirrell said Pittman's lack of height helps mask one of her greatest strengths.

"She can jump out of the gym," Shirrell said. "She's just very athletic, very strong. I think that just propels her to play bigger than what she actually is.

"She's had games where she's had eight or nine steals this year. It's quick hands and jumping ability. A lot of guards who are taller than her try to throw it over the top of her and don't realize she can jump as high as she can jump. She gets up and just a fingertip deflection and she can outrun them to the ball."

Pittman's quick hands and blazing speed help her turn steals into easy baskets. She's averaging 4.2 steals per game and she loves to turn a steal into an uncontested layup.

"I'm pretty quick," she said. "With my shortness comes my speed. I use it as much as possible."

Teams try a little of everything to slow her down. Notre Dame used a rotation of guards to try to contain Pittman during their game Feb. 2 at the Show Me Center. The Bulldogs posted the 69-53 win, but Pittman scored 22 points.

"We thought if nothing else, we want to fatigue her a little bit," Notre Dame coach Renee Peters said. "We put two girls on her with the press and hopefully eventually she'd run out of steam, but it didn't look like it happened very well. The only way you're going to guard speed is with speed. She's a really good player."

The additional defensive pressure hasn't rattled Pittman. It's like those pickup games against her brothers in Michigan.

"To this day, I'm still really hard on her," her brother Bartholomew said. "I always told her I would never take it easy on her because I wanted her to develop into a better player than I was or better player than I've seen before."

Opposing teams know they must slow down Pittman, but she only averages 2.5 turnovers per game, while dishing out 2.2 assists per contest this season.

"Even just looking back at game film from last year, from last year compared to this year, she's become more of a leader on the floor, not just with her ballhandling skills," Shirrell said. "Basically she just needs to know when to take it to the hole, when to distribute it and when to shoot. We've kind of left that up to her and she's done a really good job with that."

Pittman said she's been asked to do more on the court this season. She's averaging 16.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game while helping the Tigers post a 13-6 record. She said each of those losses has been difficult to swallow.

"After the loss against Notre Dame, I felt like I gave it my all and I still couldn't pull them enough," she said. "It gets hard at times and I beat myself up at times, but then as long as I know I've given it my all is what I have to say at the end of the day. As long as I've given it 150 percent, that's all I can do.

"I've learned this year I really have to step up and I want to step up. It's my senior year and I believe we have a good group of girls. We could go far. I want to leave a mark at this school because I know what this school is capable of."

Shirrell agrees that this year's Tigers team has the potential to be special. Central lost in the Class 5 District 1 title game last year.

"I think we can win our district tournament," Shirrell said. "I think we can go as far as she wants to carry us. But I think that the rest of the kids are going to have to step up and follow her lead because we can't totally depend on her. We can't be a one-dimensional team."

Pittman's role as the team's offensive and defensive leader is a long way from her role as the third-grader afraid to shoot during games. And one of the people most instrumental in helping her come out of her shell and develop into a player who wants to continue her playing career in college will be in the stands for Pittman's next game. Knepp will be at the Show Me Center on Tuesday to watch rivals Central and Jackson. And while he'll be cheering for the Indians since his daughter Kaylen is a starter for Jackson, he'll watch Central's energetic point guard with a special appreciation.

"Obviously I'm going to be pulling for my daughter and her team, but I also know I remember her when she was in second grade and it's fun to watch her," Knepp said of Pittman. "Am I going to be pulling for Jackson? Yes, I am. Do I hope that Sadie Pittman has a good game? Yes, I do. I want this to take her to whatever it is she wants to get out of it."