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Daniels commits to Stony Brook

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005

It wasn’t hard to predict what sport Joia Daniels would play as she was growing up. The Springbrook High senior is the oldest child of a basketball nut. Her father, Joseph, who is now the pastor of Emory United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., played four years of college ball at Rice (Texas) University and American (D.C.) as a shooting guard⁄small forward. In his second year at American after transferring from Rice, he helped Gary Williams’ Eagles reach the 1982 National Invitation Tournament, where they lost in the first round to Bradley (Ill.). This is a man who can also rattle off all pertinent statistics of his daughter.

So when Daniels verbally committed to NCAA Division I Stony Brook (N.Y.) last Wednesday, there was much rejoicing in the Daniels household.

‘‘It was the same day as my 20th [wedding] anniversary,” Joseph said. ‘‘It was a double present.”

While Daniels, who is planning to sign a National Letter of Intent on Nov. 9, will certainly be getting a present in the form of scholarship money, Stony Brook also gets a gift. Daniels, an All-Gazette honorable-mention guard in 2004-05, is quite a player. Last year, she helped Springbrook (22-4) reach the Class 4A state tournament for the first time since 1993 by averaging 10.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and three assists per game.

‘‘She was integral, not only in terms of her athletic abilities, but also her demeanor on and off the court,” said former Springbrook coach Tonya Banks, who stepped down after the season. ‘‘For me, I thought of her as some of the glue for the team.”

Banks has watched Daniels’ progression on the court for years, having coached her at White Oak Middle School before the two came to Springbrook in 2002-03 — Daniels as a freshman and Banks as a first-year head coach. Even in ninth grade, it was clear Daniels had special talent, but it was raw. Not until the end of her sophomore year, Banks said, did Daniels really start to come into her own.

‘‘She was playing some post for me, some forward,” Banks recalled, ‘‘and maybe at the end of her sophomore year, I said, ‘Look, you want more playing time? If you improve your ball-handling, you could be a guard.’ And she worked on it. She’s the type of girl that, if you told her to run 10 miles, she’d say, ‘OK.’”

After her impressive junior season, Daniels continued to shine last summer, averaging about 10 points per game in helping the AAU team D.C. Heat win the 17-and-under Potomac Valley Regional Championship tournament. With the title, the Heat earned a trip to a national tournament in Florida last July, but because of cost concerns, decided to go to a prestigious event at Penn State University instead. That’s where Stony Brook got a good look at her, according to Heat coach Brian Wiley.

‘‘Her nickname is ‘the Warrior,’” he said, ‘‘and it’s true. As sweet as she is — she’s a preacher’s kid — she rebounds with the best of them. She’ll go in there with no fear, and she’ll keep going until the play is dead. That’s what Stony Brook saw up at Penn State.”

Daniels was also considering Hartford (Conn.), which won the America East Conference last year and reached the NCAA Tournament, but she eventually chose Stony Brook because it was more her style.

‘‘Hartford won their conference championship last year,” she said, ‘‘but I wanted to be part of an underdog, as opposed to a powerhouse.”

The Seawolves are in an exciting building phase. Although the team finished 8-20 last year, there is much hope surrounding the future since the program signed 2004-05 interim coach Maura McHugh to a longer deal in April. McHugh’s stellar coaching résumé includes stints as the head coach of the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs (2001-03 head coach; 1999-01 assistant), the American Basketball League’s Long Beach StingRays (1997-98), Arizona State (1987-93) and Oklahoma (1980-87).

‘‘It’s a program that is building,” Joseph Daniels said, ‘‘and Joia sees herself as a builder.”

Currently, though, she has one more project before college: getting the Blue Devils back to the state tournament. Although the team lost a lot of talented seniors from last year’s team, Daniels leads a talented group that could make some noise.

‘‘I’d like to accomplish the division championship, I’d like to win regionals again, and I’d like to go as far as we went last year, but go farther — make it to the state championship game,” she said.