He tried to go incognito, pulling a woolly cap down low over his famous face. But Rachel Banham and her Gophers teammates instantly recognized Ricky Rubio, and they weren't letting the Timberwolves idol get away without posing for a few pictures.
"We all pretty much attacked him," said Banham, laughing about the scene that unfolded at the airport Sunday as the Gophers women's basketball team returned from a loss at Michigan. Coach Pam Borton was laughing, too, for a slightly different reason. "Just imagine how he felt," she told her freshman point guard. "That's how you're going to feel one of these days."
Banham is already drawing that kind of attention among basketball fans. She hasn't yet reached the level of fame that gets a player recognized at the airport or the grocery store or the movie theater, but Borton sees it coming.
Before Banham ever set foot on campus, she shouldered the weight of outsized expectations, anointed as the star who could pull Gophers basketball out of its doldrums. The prodigy from Lakeville North never felt burdened by that, and she has outshined even the loftiest predictions. This week, after scoring a career-high 28 points against Michigan, she was named Big Ten freshman of the week for the fourth time this season.
Like all great point guards -- including Gophers legend Lindsay Whalen, to whom she is frequently compared -- Banham can read and react quickly as she runs the offense. She is cool under pressure and has a fearlessness uncommon for a freshman. Part of that might be genetic; both of her parents are police officers, and she plans to follow her mother's career path as a sex-crimes investigator. For now, Banham is content to keep building a case as the Gophers' most exciting player in years.
"I didn't know I was going to be able to put up the numbers I have," said Banham, who leads the Gophers in points (15.5 per game), minutes (33.8) and three-pointers (31). "I expected to be a scorer. That's what the coaches told me they needed. But things are going a little better than I thought they would."
Borton feels the same way -- and she expected Banham to be an overachiever. In her seventh college game, Banham hit a close-range jumper with 0.6 seconds left to beat Virginia Tech. She is averaging 20.2 points in Big Ten play, ranking her third in the league. Sunday, when the rest of the Gophers starters scored a total of two points in the first half, she poured in 18.
"Some of the performances she's putting on, I'm thinking, 'How much better can she get offensively?'" Borton said. "It's her confidence, her takeover ability. She's continuing to grow as a player, and I like where she's at right now."
