Women's Hoops Guru

By Stephen K. Lee

PISCATAWAY, N.J. _ Though analysts and women’s hoops fans are drooling over the possibilities of what fourth-ranked Rutgers’ highly-touted 2008 recruiting class will do for the future of the program, the senior class of 2008 is largely responsible for laying the foundation that will allow the Scarlet Knights to reach the next level.

Serving as leaders, role models and Rutgers ambassadors, the trio of Essence Carson, Matee Ajavon and Katie Adams has set the tone for the Scarlet Knights from day one.

Head coach C. Vivian Stringer admits that she’s glad that Saturday’s game against Syracuse presents a tough challenge for her team because it allows her to avoid thinking about how much she’ll miss her seniors.

“They had the greatest impact of any team that has ever come into Rutgers,”Stringer says. “That group was the hardest-working group of freshmen ever.

“They came in to contribute, they didn’t come in arrogant.”

Stringer recalls one occasion from 2004 that showed her that the Class of 2008 was going to be special. In her annual early-season fitness test for her players, then-freshmen Carson, Ajavon and Adams stepped up to the challenge of their seasoned teammates.

“I remember one young lady who saw me at church told me ‘I want you to know that I don’t think the freshmen a going to pass that test.’ I said ‘Really? We’re going to see,’” Stringer says. “Sure enough, I laughed the next week because all of the upperclassmen were in the breakfast club with me – they were getting up at six o’clock (for failing the test). Those freshmen were not.”

“They honored and respected this program so much that not one of them dare not come in out of shape to the point where they passed everyone on the test.”

Of the three, Stringer points to Essence Carson, the two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, as the strength of the team. The guard/forward from Paterson, N.J., has been the most versatile player on the team, filling in at just about every position while also establishing a level of consistency offensively despite not being a focal point of the offense.

“Essence is a young spirit with an old mind,” she says. “E was the most unselfish person that I’ve ever met. Right from the beginning, she would’ve been a center or a point guard where she would’ve been happy to be at the end of the basketball chain for everybody because it never was about her and it still isn’t.”

When the Imus controversy arose last April, Stringer knew that Carson would be the voice of the team.

“When this thing happened with Imus, the reason why she stood up is because she would look at that and say, ‘If it is to be, then I’m probably the best one that’s qualified. I know that, so I’ll do it.’ See that’s why she’ll play the point guard if we needed it. That’s why she’d play the two. We needed a spokesperson.”

Also, Carson and Adams served as spokeswomen for Rutgers and Stringer credits the two of them for playing a big part in recruiting the highly-anticipated Class of 2012.

Sophomore guard Epiphanny Prince says that the seniors have played a big role in her young career as well.

“They’ve meant a lot,” Prince says. “On and off the court they always help me out with everything I need. It’s going to be hard to see them go.”

As for the relationship the three seniors have between themselves, it’s as close as it gets.

“We’re all tight,” says Matee Ajavon.”We came in together. I think you come in with a group of girls, you have that certain thing you have going on because you came in together and you’re going to leave together. So, our relationship is really really good.”

Ajavon and Katie Adams probably best illustrate the closeness and trust the Scarlet Knights pride themselves in. Though Ajavon is the pride and joy of Newark and Adams hails all the way from Utah, the two senior guards are inseparable and self-proclaimed “roommates for life.”

“We’re sisters,” Adams says. “Really close.Me and Mat have been roommates all four years so we’re like blood sisters basically. Me, Mat and E – we can talk about anything to each other and get on each other at the same time.”

Carson says Adams, the shy one, and Ajavon, the jokester of the group, balance each other out.

“The two complement each other,” Carson says. “If Katie doesn’t speak up for herself, Mat will. If Mat says too much, Katie says calm down.

Though Adams hasn’t logged very much time on the floor over the span of her career, her teammates have the utmost respect for her commitment to hard work.

“She can be on her sick bed and Katie will get up, go out there and give you 100 percent each and every day,” says Carson. “And I don’t believe anyone or anything will ever take that from her in any situation that she’s in.”

As the point guard who was given the reins to the team in the post-Cappie Pondexter era, Ajavon has been the catalyst for most of Rutgers’ offensive plays and she has often used her flashy and explosive style of play to swing momentum back in her team’s favor.

“Sometimes Mat forgets, since she’s a point guard, sometimes she forgets what she’s supposed to do,” Stringer jokes. “She starts out the house and she starts going in a direction.”

Here is what each of the seniors said when asked about their legacy at Rutgers.

Adams: “Hopefully it will be like bringing something new to Rutgers. I hope we made a difference, changing the program around and, like Coach Stringer said, become the ‘Jewel of the Big East.’ I hope that we helped accomplish that.”

Ajavon: “I think it will be remembered as a group of girls that came in and wanted to make a change and just played hard.”

Carson: “I want this team to be remembered as one of, if not the, greatest teams in Rutgers history. And I know last year is gone, but I know that’s the first time that we’ve gone to an NCAA championship final game. I know they did the AIAW before I was born. I want to be remembered for something. Last year it was the finals game. I know the team wants to make it a championship game. We want our legacy to be known as NCAA champions.”

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