How ‘fearless’ Kamaria McDaniel is leading the Penn State Lady Lions into a new era with explosive scoring
Kamaria McDaniel remembers picking up a tennis racket, holding a softball mitt and jumping on a trampoline to practice gymnastics as a child.
But as her father had her explore all the possible sports, McDaniel only picked up on one thing — basketball.
Now 15 years later, McDaniel is leading Penn State women’s basketball in scoring, averaging 19.7 points per game, in the first year of a new era for the program under head coach Carolyn Kieger.
This level of production from McDaniel all started in her driveway as a child.
“Ever since then I played on a little toy rim in the basement, then (my dad) bought me a rim on the garage in the driveway and that is where I spent my whole summer,” McDaniel said. “The entire summer. I remember it was low and I took it up from 8 feet, to 9 feet and I remember all those things and being able to dunk on the 8-foot rim and all that kind of stuff.
“Basketball has been the biggest part of my life for the last 15 or 16 years.”
McDaniel has exploded onto the scene for the Lady Lions this season, scoring in double figures in 22 of Penn State’s 23 games.
And her nearly 20 points per game average is double the points per game she averaged last season, but according to McDaniel, she can’t take credit for the success she’s had on the court.
“It’s been God, my teammates and my coaches for putting me in positions to be successful and I can’t take any of the credit for that,” McDaniel said. “My teammates are the people that I’m out there going to war with and make things happen for me and it definitely wouldn’t be possible without them.
“I mean that’s the reason I got here.”
McDaniel, who has led Penn State in scoring in 16 of its 23 games, added that she isn’t going into games looking to score. She is going to take what the defense gives her and do whatever she can for her team to win.
“I just kind of go off my instincts and my teammates find me and continue to put me in a position to be successful,” McDaniel said. “I definitely don’t go into games saying I’m gonna do this or do that because that is not the main goal. The main goal is to win and whatever I do is trying to give us the best chance to win.
“So whatever that takes from me is what I do. I’m not really concerned with (points) I’m just trying to get the dub. And that is just something that kind of comes with it, just me playing hard.”
Sometimes, however, McDaniel does have a tendency to try to do too much as the guard has attempted 140 more field goals than anyone else on the team.
But her coach believes McDaniel has the right mindset to make improvements.
“There is not a shot that Kamaria hasn’t liked and we are learning how to channel that and rein her in a little bit so she can score the same amount of points on better quality shots,” Kieger said. “I think it is something that she is buying into and I think it is going to take time.”
McDaniel is certainly buying in and couldn’t offer enough praise for the job Kieger has done in leading Penn State in the first season of a tough rebuilding process.
“(Kieger) has really allowed me to come into myself as a basketball player and I’m definitely still very, very far from where I want to be but she has given me that freedom,“ McDaniel said. “I appreciate her for that and it has just boosted my confidence to have a coach that really believes in me, so she gets all the praise for that. She’s been great in my development.”
The biggest change that McDaniel has seen in the program under Kieger this season is the intense approach that she brings to the gym every day.
That intensity has allowed McDaniel to thrive.
“You have no choice but to get with the program or it’s going to be real uncomfortable,” McDaniel said. “She demands greatness at all times and she does not lower her standards or anything like that.
“The intensity of how to play in the details. We watch a lot of film and I also think that has helped me personally because when we are watching film, I am able to see things before they happen and it helps you to learn faster.”
Kieger recruited McDaniel, a Inkster, Michigan, native while she was the coach at Marquette. Now she is seeing the potential she saw in McDaniel come to fruition.
“She’s fearless,” Kieger said. “She is such a phenomenal scorer with the ball in her hands and we are trying to get her to learn how to play with the ball off her hands and how to use screens and cut and stuff.
“At the end of the day, she needs to play hard for 40 minutes and when she does that she is one of the best guards in the league.”
McDaniel is averaging just under 35 minutes a game this season. But the junior doesn’t mind long stretches of playing time on the court.
According to McDaniel, the more time she spends out on the court or even in the gym the better.
“It just brings me so much joy to play. It is something that I really love doing,” McDaniel said. “Just being in the gym, not even playing a game.
“Just being in the gym I feel comfortable, I feel safe, it relaxes my mind and when I’m playing I don’t think about anything else.”
As McDaniel continues to grow in State College, her game is showing more and more flashes of her favorite player — Houston Rockets guard Russell Westbrook.
“(Westbrook) is fun to watch,” McDaniel said. “He gets triple doubles, he is intense, he plays defense and I just really like how fast he plays and being able to stop the ball in transition.
“I just really like him and all the intensity that he brings just excites me.”
As the 7-16 Lady Lions close out their first season under Kieger, one that hasn’t achieved the sort of results that Kieger demands, McDaniel still believes that the future is bright for Penn State.
And it starts next season in her senior year.
“The sky’s the limit,” McDaniel said. “It is going to be great; it is going to be a big turnaround, something that is going to go down in history.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2020 at 11:24 AM.
