Sports editor Callie Hummel speaks with Mayberry on the team’s recent successes.
Upon starting her collegiate basketball career, Maya Mayberry didn’t have a numerical scoring goal for her time at TU. However, as the games and seasons progressed, it was quickly apparent that Mayberry was going to break 1500 career points, whether it were a goal of hers or not.
The fifth-year shooting guard on the Tulsa women’s basketball team surpassed 1,500 career points after scoring a three pointer against UCF on Jan. 7. The team screamed, jumping up and down and throwing water to celebrate the mile marker while Mayberry jogged into position to play defense.
Wanting to achieve the 1,500 point mark was a “growing process” as Mayberry says. She didn’t begin her career with the lofty goal, but began to realize it was something she could definitely achieve.
Mayberry started off her career-long process at Oral Roberts University before transferring during the 2020-2021 season to TU. For many athletes, the “COVID season” is looked back on with dread and feelings of being tricked out of a season of their favorite sport. Mayberry looks back on the season fondly though, as she had a unique experience not many other athletes have. The season allowed her to play with a younger sister on the court, Wyvette, and an older sister on the coaching staff, Taleya.
“I had the best of both worlds [that season] with a coach I was related to and a teammate I was related to, it can’t get better than that.”
Mayberry grew up in a “basketball family”. Her dad was an integral part of his Arkansas team and Taleya played professional basketball for three years overseas. She never had the chance to play with any of her siblings before this point. In high school, Maya was a senior and Wyvette, a freshman. Despite being on the same team, Maya played point guard and Wyvette was her back up, so they were never on the court at the same time.
Joining TU during the 2020-2021 season also allowed Mayberry to experience the rebuilding of the TU women’s team from the ground up. She feels that the main difference with their new coach, Coach Angie Nelp, is the speed of play. “With Coach Angie right now, we play so fast. That’s been a big turnaround from what was previously going on.”
Coach Angie is also big on relationships, and making sure the teammates are forming bonds. Although Coach planned all different types of activities during the summer to help build chemistry, “[they] just molded pretty well together, it was pretty natural.”
Mayberry said most of the real bonding came in the weight room or on the court. She says, “All the hard work we have put in during preseason made us come together more because during those hard workouts, those hard times, we had to lift each other up because we’re all we had.”
The team is currently 15-3 overall and sitting at an undefeated 5-0 in their conference, making them the team to beat. Despite definitely “enjoying [their] success”, Mayberry says it’s not hard to stay focused when winning, that “the success [they’ve] had just makes [them] focus even more.”
Personally, Mayberry likes having this “chip on her shoulder” type of success, as it “adds a rush” to the games. She played hard for the 2020 team that “had nothing to lose, and just went out there to play” and she’s continuing to play hard for the team that goes out “to win these games because people are coming for [them].”
Tulsa women’s basketball still has a lot of important games left in the season. They have yet to lose a home game, which Mayberry believes “shows that [they] play hard and fight for [their] home court.”
Their next home game is Jan. 25, where they will have the opportunity to break the record for most home games won in a row against USF. In Mayberry’s time as a Golden Hurricane, she has never beaten USF, so the game is “something [she’s] definitely looking forward to.”
