Alexis Peterson would nag her aunt, Carla Norris, to keep playing. She’d refuse to go indoors and end her day with a loss.

“‘Nah ah ah, we’re not done auntie, we’re not done,’” Norris remembers Peterson saying.

But throughout Peterson’s childhood, the 5-foot-11 Norris backed down her much shorter niece and scored over her in one-on-one games on the street. The hoop kissed the curb and was supported at its base by sand and cinderblocks. Only when cars rolled past, the duo was forced to take a breather.

Peterson was forced to learn how to dribble aggressively toward the basket and launch deep jump shots against bigger defenders, two signature elements still part of her game as a 5-foot-7 junior point guard at Syracuse.

Until she was 10, Peterson played in organized leagues with boys and trained with Norris in preparation to face more physical players. That combination laid the groundwork for Peterson’s quest to prove she belonged, which continues to fuel her.

“When I get in that mode, you see me screaming, that’s where it’s coming from,” Peterson said. “When you play with the boys, they don’t respect you. That’s how it is here, they don’t respect Syracuse.”

With a matchup against No. 1 seed South Carolina (33-1, 16-0 Southeastern), whose only loss came against undefeated three-time defending national champion Connecticut, No. 4 seed Syracuse (27-7, 13-3 Atlantic Coast) is looking to crash the top-heavy women’s basketball national landscape and advance to the Elite Eight with Peterson leading the way.

She’s already carried the Orange to its deepest point ever in the NCAA tournament and is averaging 20.4 points in Syracuse’s five postseason games.

On Friday, SU has a chance to knock off the first giant it faces in this year’s NCAA tournament — Syracuse beat No. 13 seed Army and No. 12 seed Albany to reach its first-ever Sweet 16 — and Peterson understands what it’s like to be the underdog.

 

Logan Reidsma | Senior Staff Photographer

 

Peterson laid her foundation of playing with a swagger and smile on the street with Norris. When Peterson struggles in college, Norris tells her, “Play like you’re on the playground.”

Though she was one of the quickest players on the court, the boys didn’t recognize her for that. When she’d blow past defenders and get to the rim, she’d let out a scream to earn their attention because simply being better than them wasn’t enough.

 

Courtesy of Georgia Peterson

 

While watching games in the men’s NCAA Tournament with her boyfriend this past Friday night, Peterson rooted for teams like No. 11 seed Northern Iowa, No. 13 seed Hawaii and No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin because she could relate.

“I feel like I’ve always been the underdog and always had to prove myself,” Peterson said.

Even with Syracuse hosting the first two rounds at home and being seeded significantly higher than its first two opponents, Peterson told herself to keep thinking like the underdog. That’s what she feels comfortable doing. It’s all she knows.

In the district championship game her junior year, Peterson’s Northland (Ohio) High School team was trailing at halftime. Olentangy (Ohio) High School had beaten Northland earlier in the season and one of Northland’s key contributors was out with an ACL injury for the rematch.

While sitting in the locker room at halftime, Peterson rapidly bounced her leg up and down. Norris, one of Northland’s assistant coaches, saw Peterson’s body language and knew she was locked in.

At one point in the second half, Peterson yelled, “We ain’t gonna lose!” her mother, Georgia Peterson recalled.

Peterson finished with 27 points, 13 in the fourth quarter, and the Vikings won 51-50.

“She really won that game by herself,” Georgia Peterson said.

Matt Hankin | Design Editor

 

At North Carolina State on Feb. 14, with Syracuse’s eventual 11-game win streak on the line, the Orange found itself in a back-and-forth battle in the fourth quarter. With 3:37 left to play, Peterson hit a 3 from the corner to cut the Wolfpack lead to one.

She ran down the court and screamed “We ain’t losing this game!” assistant coach Tammi Reiss remembered.

Then she hit another 3 on the next possession to give SU the lead that it hung onto the rest of the game. The following day, the Orange catapulted back into the AP Top 25.

Before the game against Albany on Sunday, Peterson shook her leg the same way she did in the locker room during halftime of the district championship her junior year. Peterson finished with 22 points and six assists over the Great Danes.

In high school, Peterson wasn’t recruited by any big-name programs. Xavier, Ole Miss and Wake Forest were all in the mix with Syracuse. But she wasn’t offered a scholarship by Ohio State, which is located in Peterson’s hometown of Columbus, or any other big-name programs. Norris described the snub from OSU as, “almost a slap in the face.”

Three years later, Peterson ranks second in the ACC in assists (5.18 per game) and fourth in steals (2.5 per game).

“I better tell you, there’s a lot of coaches in the United States right now that’ve watched this girl play,” Peterson’s AAU coach, Jim Clayton, said, “that kick themselves in the heiny for not recruiting her.”

The first time Clayton coached Peterson in a practice, it lasted for eight hours. He was determined to find out which of his players were “whiners or winners.”

Peterson never let her play diminish even as the time wore on.

“That’s when I knew, man, she was some kind of player,” Clayton said.

 

Courtesy of Georgia Peterson

 

The first time Peterson scored 30 points in a game, against Wake Forest last season, her teammates fully realized her ability to take over games.

“It was like, ‘Dang,’” said Diamond Henderson, Peterson’s former teammate at SU. “… I think that was the first time I was really like, ‘OK, this kid can really do it day in and day out.’”

More than a year later, Peterson is piecing together the best stretch of her career in some of the biggest games she’s played. But with a matchup against No. 1 seed South Carolina looming, the rest of the nation may expect the Gamecocks to roll to another blowout win.

And that’s exactly what Peterson wants you to think.

“When you have a threat that you don’t see coming and they just make this great run and do such great things” Peterson said, “it’s a good story to have because that’s always been my story.”

Published on March 22, 2016 at 10:16 pm

Contact Paul: pmschwed@syr.edu | @pschweds