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USF women's freshman Laksa adjusting rapidly to U.S.

 
South Florida Bulls forward Kitija Laksa (33) takes a shot during the game between the South Florida Bulls and the Tulane Green Wave in the USF Sun Dome on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. The South Florida Bulls beat the Tulane Green Wave 77 - 65.
South Florida Bulls forward Kitija Laksa (33) takes a shot during the game between the South Florida Bulls and the Tulane Green Wave in the USF Sun Dome on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. The South Florida Bulls beat the Tulane Green Wave 77 - 65.
Published Feb. 15, 2016

TAMPA

Her debut in a USF jersey was darn near infallible and, to the Bulls' domestic fan base, inconspicuous.

Last August, while most Bulls supporters were counting the days until football season's commencement, 6-foot Latvian freshman Kitija Laksa was scoring nearly at will on another continent. In three games during the USF women's exhibition tour of Spain, Laksa totaled 53 points, draining 8 of 13 3-pointers.

During that tour, which ended with USF going 4-0 against overmatched opposition, only a smattering of web reports and snippets of video chronicled her. Still, Laksa's reputation preceded her.

"I think she's gonna have a great year for us," Bulls coach Jose Fernandez said a couple of months later during his team's preseason media day. "If she's not one of the top freshmen in the country in our system, I would find that hard to believe."

Saddled with such hype, Laksa initially struggled to connect with American audiences, or the bottom of the net. In her Sun Dome debut against Jacksonville, Laksa hit her first 3-pointer before missing her next six, totaling 15 points. Two days later against Drexel, she went 1-for-4 from long range, scoring seven in 25 minutes.

Eleven regular-season games into her career, the Latvian national team member had gone 17-for-55 (30.9 percent) from behind the 3-point line.

"She had a great trip in Spain, and I think she put a lot of pressure on herself," Fernandez said. "But that's the type of player that she is."

Six weeks later, Laksa — called "Kit" by her peers — still struggles with some quirks in her new culture, such as Americans' propensity for piling bacon, eggs and cheese on a perfectly good bagel. But her jump shot finally has assimilated itself into her new surroundings — and the nation's consciousness.

In her past 13 games, Laksa is shooting 50 percent (50-for-100) from 3-point range. The highlight: a 38-point effort Jan. 7 against SMU in which she went 8-for-12 from behind the arc in an 83-56 Bulls romp. Only three players in USF history have scored more in a single game.

"It felt awesome, honestly," Laksa (first name pronounced Kitt-E-yuh) said in her profound European accent. "But I have to say a huge thank you to Coach (Fernandez) and my teammates, because they found me."

To be sure, 12th-ranked Louisville will find her tonight and mark her every ball fake and backdoor cut.

Laksa enters this nationally televised road game — critical to USF's hopes of hosting an NCAA Tournament opening weekend — as the No. 22 Bulls' second-leading scorer (13.7 ppg) and top 3-point shooter (67-for-155). She is the three-time reigning American Athletic Conference freshman of the week.

"The shots she missed those first seven or eight games are the same shots she's taking now," Fernandez said.

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"I think nothing big changed," added Laksa, the daughter of basketball coaches and younger sister of a Latvian men's pro player. "I just kept doing my thing, and everyone kind of trusted me, and I got the confidence."

This is the proficiency — not to mention agility and deft ball-handling — Fernandez saw during his annual European recruiting trek last year. One of six Europeans on the Bulls roster, Laksa had played for three Latvian national age-group teams and averaged double figures for TTT Riga NBL, one of its elite club teams.

Not that Fernandez had the market cornered on Latvian talent. Laksa, 19, generated interest from Florida, Miami, Toledo and St. Joseph's, among others.

But one visit to Tampa and her presumptions about American basketball (e.g. tendency for one-on-one play) ceased. So did her recruiting.

"All the stereotypes I had about playing in the U.S., it changed, and I didn't have any questions anymore after my visit," she said.

"I knew where I wanted to be. I saw the UConn game of course, so I saw USF playing the best out of the best. I realized where I wanted to be. I wanted to play with the best, I wanted to be around the best."

In one of her more surreal American moments, Laksa took her best right to the best. In last month's 75-59 home loss to the top-ranked Huskies, she scored 17, finishing 5-for-7 from long range.

"Sometimes you get kids to come from overseas, they can do one thing, and you try to get the most out of them," Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said afterward. "She impressed me that she's not just gonna stand there and shoot 3s. She's more than that. I think she's gonna be really good."

In a sense, those comments represented a watershed moment in Laksa's young career. Months earlier, her hype had preceded her.

On that night, against women's basketball juggernaut, she preceded the hype.

Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls.