Baylor’s point guard phenom Odyssey Sims impressed all year, has no first-time Big 12 tournament jitters

Odyssey Sims regular season slideshow

When Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey announced the signing of Odyssey Sims to a National Letter of Intent in November 2009, the left-handed point guard was about to begin her last season at girl’s basketball powerhouse MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. Former Baylor player Kelli Griffin was a junior, the team’s floor general and a starter in every Lady Bear game of the 2009-2010 season.

Sims, regarded as the nation’s top high school point guard, came into the 2010-11 season recovering from an ACL injury and did not play in the first preseason game, observing Griffin from the sidelines. But before the team’s final preseason outing, Griffin quit the team, throwing a wrench into Baylor’s back court lineup. Mulkey experimented with having Kimetria Hayden start at the point and rotating Jordan Madden and Sims in the back court. By the ninth game of the season, Sims had earned the starting point guard job. Since then, she has started every single contest except for a December 30, 2010 matchup against Texas-Pan American, a game in which she did not play because Mulkey wanted to rest the freshman before Big 12 conference play began the following week.

While college coaches and fans in Texas knew about the phenom from suburban Dallas, the rest of the nation began to take notice of the freshman’s ferocious defense and prolific offense all the while running the floor like someone older than her years.

“She doesn’t play like a freshman to me,” said teammate Destiny Williams about Sims after the team’s semifinal defeat of Kansas State in the Big 12 tournament. “She plays like an upperclassman.”

When Baylor beat Oklahoma in a game this past February, Lady Bear senior guard Melissa Jones talked about the freshman’s progression.

“I think Odyssey does a great job distributing the ball, and not just to open players, but at the right time,” said Jones. “I think her ability to read stuff like that…she has just grown so much as a player already.”

Sims’ former opponents on the high school and club circuit who are now playing against her in college have also commented on her poise this season.

In December, Baylor hosted Tennessee and its freshman starting point guard from the San Antonio area, Meighan Simmons, was impressed with Sims.

“She has gotten better,” said Simmons. “Today I saw a side of Odyssey that I’ve never seen.”

Sims came into this week’s Big 12 tournament showing no signs of nervousness that afflicted players of all classes on other teams as they took the floor on the big stage of postseason play.

Was she nervous at all about playing in her first college postseason tournament?

“No, not at all,” she told Hoopfeed.com. “It’s just like the regular season, just go out and be competitive. It’s nothing that I haven’t faced already, just a different atmosphere. It’s just nice to have our fans, our band and our cheerleaders.”

She attributed the focus and preparation of her teammates as the key to being successful so far this week.

“It’s just how we go out there, with intensity and ready to play.”

Sims, the Big 12 leader in three-point field goal percentage, went into Friday’s Kansas State game at .450 (58-129) from the arc. Her 4-for-5 three-point shots in the semifinal increased that percentage to .463. She tied the third-best 3-point shooting mark in Big 12 semifinal history for players making a minimum of three.

Sims has more than lived up to Mulkey’s expectations this season while impressing other coaches like Texas A&M’s Gary Blair.

After Baylor defeated the Aggies in College Station on January 30, Blair talked about her abilities and the 25 points she scored playing against his team.

“She’s played like that all year and that’s the difference,” said Blair in reference to Baylor’s edge over his team. “I don’t think there’s a freshman point guard in the country that’s as good as her.”

Sims’ season accolades

• Earned five Big 12 Freshman of the Week honors
• Named to both the All-Big 12 first-team and All-Freshman team (unanimous selection).
• Her 37 points in Baylor’s regular season game at Oklahoma were the second-most in the Big 12 this season and second-most ever by a Baylor rookie.

Also posted at big12.hoopfeed.com.