Easy choice for SR star
SLIPPERY ROCK — In late July, Emma McDermott was riding in a car with her parents and her Slippery Rock High girls basketball coach, Amber Osborn, on the way to an AAU tournament.
The conversation strayed to McDermott's college choice.
“If you had to choose right now, which school would you pick?” Osborn asked.
After mulling over the question for a few seconds, McDermott answered, “Mercyhurst University.”
Osborn smiled. “Then,” she said. “What are you waiting for?”
It was an epiphany for McDermott, a 6-foot incoming senior for the Rockets who had drained 61 3-pointers as a junior and was the District 10 Region 5 girls basketball player of the year.
McDermott had spent most of her summer engaged in quite a bit of handwringing about her college choice.
It wasn't that long ago when McDermott wondered if she'd even have a decision to agonize over after suffering a devastating knee injury during her sophomore season.
“I would say no, I didn't have any doubts,” McDermott said before a long pause and a chuckle. “Actually, that's a lie. I had doubts. I was worried that I wasn't going to come back as strong as I was, or as quick or as good, but then I'd snap out of it and realize I couldn't think like that. It motivated me to hit the gym and work hard in rehab.”
Not only did McDermott return for her junior season, she was a star on a Rockets' team that went 20-5 and won the District 10 5A championship.
After a rusty start, McDermott flourished down the stretch and in the playoffs. She averaged 13.7 points per game on the year, but scored at a 16.4-point-per-game clip after Jan. 15.
That put her on the Division I and Division II map again.
“I'm not a brilliant person, but I'm not dumb, either; I know enough about basketball to know she was definitely a Division II player,” said Osborn, who had a similar recruiting experience as McDermott when she was coming out of Grove City High as a point guard. Osborn ended up playing four seasons at Slippery Rock University. “She's a player who can make an impact on a program at the Division II level.”
McDermott was finally convinced of that when several schools came calling.
McDermott was also considering Daemen College in Amhurst, N.Y., Gannon University and Ohio Dominican University, among others.
But Mercyhurst had something the others lacked.
A feeling in McDermott's gut.“I loved everything about the campus,” McDermott said. “It felt right to me. It felt like the right choice to me.”McDermott said she also wanted to go to a school where she could play immediately instead of sit for a year or more before she would receive significant minutes,Mercyhurst has a very young roster heading into the 2018-19 season and will still be quite young when McDermott arrives for the 2019-20 campaign.“One of the things they like about me is I'm versatile,” McDermott said. “I'm going to be more than a role player there. I won't be sitting the bench for a year or two. That was really important to me.”Osborn has also been important to McDermott.“Ever since I came to high school, she's been by my side,” McDermott said of Osborn. “She told me I could play at the college level and she never doubted me. I couldn't have asked for a better coaching figure.“After every college visit I made she would ask how it went,” McDermott added. “She always believed in me.”
