Hood's Breakout Year Helping Robert Lee's Playoff Push

ROBERT LEE, TX -- The Robert Lee Lady Steers have been on a tear during the 2018-19 season. They’re 18-5 overall and third place in District 11-1A with a record of 5-2.

All that while playing under new head coach Brandye Wilson and with the right mix of youth and experience on the floor.

Those young players, including freshman Braylee Hood, have played a “very crucial” role in Wilson’s first year.

The freshman utility player has stepped into a crucial starting spot for the Lady Steers. If you saw her play, you wouldn’t think she was in her first year of high school.

“At times, she plays like a freshman. But for the most part, you wouldn’t know she’s a freshman except looking at her,” Wilson said. “She can play all spots. She can play post, she plays point guard, she plays wing. She can rebound well, she scores for us. So, she’s very crucial to our team.”

Hood didn’t expect to be this big of an impact player for Robert Lee this year. Rather, she expected to be nervous. Instead, the freshman is averaging 15 points per game and around seven rebounds per game in a breakout season.

When Wilson got to Robert Lee, she was able to watch Hood during summer league. Wilson immediately knew Hood would be a player for her Lady Steers.

“I got to watch her a little bit in the summer,” Wilson said. “That’s probably when I figured out she was gonna help us a whole lot. I came from Ira, so I hadn’t watched her in junior high or anything like that.”

With Hood’s, as well as the whole team’s versatility, that’s created the opportunity to run different looks and sets that keep opponents guessing.

“We have a really blessed team in that we can press if we want to. We’re all fast, even our post players are pretty quick and they can get down the floor,” Wilson said. “It opens up a lot of areas. I can move them all out. I can have my post players playing outside, I can have them playing inside. Some of my guards do the same thing. So, it’s been very positive for us to be able to play all kinds of offenses.”

Wilson is an experienced coach. She was on the Roscoe Highland staff that went to the state tournament in 2013. Later, she took over the head coaching role for the Ira Lady Bulldogs and led them to the regional quarterfinals in 2018.

With her background, Wilson knows smaller schools from time to time will have young players feature on their teams. That means the upperclassmen have to step up and take the underclassmen under their wings.

Hood has also made leaps and bounds during her freshman season, Wilson said. That has been helped, in part, to senior leadership on this Lady Steers squad.

With her background, Wilson knows smaller schools from time to time will have young players feature on their teams. That means the upperclassmen have to step up and take the underclassmen under their wings. Wilson also knows a freshman could run into resistance from those upperclassmen.

There’s been no such resistance in Robert Lee..

“[The seniors] have been very helpful with everyone,” Wilson praised. “They’ve been great mentors for [Braylee]. They help her through stuff. They also include her. A lot of times, older players have a problem with a freshman coming in and being a big part of the team. But they haven’t. They’ve played with her and helped her through. They feed her the ball. They have a really good bond.”

The seniors also bought in to Wilson’s system immediately, making it easier for Hood and the young players to follow suit.

“I think we’ve played pretty well. We all enjoy coach Wilson,” Hood said. “We play pretty well as a team. I think [the seniors] are very crucial. They’ve done really well in practice being positive and letting us into their group and making us feel welcome.”

Robert Lee beat Bronte 53-34 Thursday night to complete a sweep of this season’s Coke County Rivalry. Hood finished with 13 points in the win.

The Lady Steers will host no. 21-ranked Veribest on Tuesday, Jan. 22.