LEWISTON — Nina Davenport has been a scorer since she stepped on the Bates College campus.
Once she finally made it to campus.
When Davenport left Freeport in 2014 for the University of Maine in Orono, she was leaving basketball behind.
Everything was fine. Until that first college basketball season started.
“I saw all of my previous teammates gearing up for college basketball, and I saw them getting excited and stuff, and I was like, ‘I am going to miss that. I cannot go this year and the next three years not playing basketball. I’m going to be miserable,’” Davenport said.
Davenport had earlier been admitted to Bates — it was her runner-up choice for college. After realizing that she needed basketball in her life, she called the admissions office to see if there was any chance she could still attend the Lewiston school. Within two days, she went from being a UMaine freshman student to a Bates first-year basketball player.
Davenport, a 5-foot-11 forward, opens her junior campaign this weekend when Bates and Bowdoin co-host the Graef Memorial Classic. The Bobcats play Norwich at Bowdoin on Friday and then face Central Maine Community College at home Saturday.
Bates lost only one senior from last season’s 9-15 (4-6 NESCAC) team, the first under head coach Alison Montgomery. Along with Davenport, the team’s leader in scoring (15.6 per game) and steals (1.5) in 2015-16, also returning are leading rebounder Allie Coppola (10.6) and assist leader Bernadette Connors (3.5).
Davenport joined the Bobcats nine games into her freshman season, and technically finished as the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging 14.7 points per game. However, over the final month of the season, she took over the role of top scorer after Molly Brown went down with an injury.
Davenport said she’s always been a scorer, dating back to before her days at Freeport High School.
“I kind of just go with the flow,” Davenport said. “Like, I know I can score, and my teammates do a good job of putting me in positions where I can be successful, and then, I don’t know, if I can see the basket and I have a clear line of vision, I’m going to throw it up there. And it’s worked out well out so far.”
Last season, as a sophomore, Davenport’s scoring average jumped nearly a full point. Despite playing a post position and being one of the taller players on the team, she also led the team in 3-pointers made (67, a new Bates season record) and attempted (202).
“She’s identified by most people as our key offensive threat, which she absolutely is,” Montgomery said. “She can get so hot as a shooter and can literally be unstoppable — that was a big story in a lot of our wins last year was when she was shooting the ball well.
“She’s just so versatile. She has athleticism, but plays the post for us, and so can really create matchup problems for a lot of the teams that we’ll play against.”
That versatility extends to the other end of the court, where Davenport’s athleticism allows her to guard multiple positions. However, Davenport said her defense needs to improve, and that she must better handle the instances when the player she’s guarding puts up Davenport-like numbers.
“I’m trying to stay a lot more positive in my own mind. I get very frustrated with myself when I’m not performing,” Davenport said.
“I think defense is my biggest weakness, and I think that when I have a girl that I’m guarding and she puts up 15-plus points, that decreases my confidence by a lot. So this year I’ve been focusing on, you know, people are going to score on me, and not letting that affect me.”
Davenport was named first-team All-State by the Maine Women’s Basketball Coaches Association last year after ranking fourth in the NESCAC in scoring, 11th in rebounding and 15th in steals.
“We talked at the end of the season last year,” Montgomery said, “and she got some nice postseason awards, particularly within the state, and I kind of said, ‘That’s great. But I think you can be so much better than what you were last year.’”
Montgomery is excited that Davenport will be part of the Bates program for two more seasons. For Davenport, that means two more seasons of playing a sport that has been a major part of her life since she was young.
“It’s definitely shaped who I am,” Davenport said. “With the different teams and the different people and the connections I’ve made, it’s kind of like … people say that that when you go to college, you find who you are, but I think that through basketball I’ve found who I am.”
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