University of North Carolina Athletics
Amato: DeGraffenried Guides Heels
January 14, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 14, 2011
By Neil Amato
If Cetera DeGraffenreid's athletic dreams could come true, she'd be a football quarterback.
"I love football. I think if girls could play football, I'd love to play it," she says.
She's been fascinated by the sport since elementary school, when she hung around practices at Western Carolina University, near her family's home in Cullowhee.
These days, DeGraffenreid is Sylvia Hatchell's quarterback, a vital, dual-threat player who, if football stats were being applied, would lead the nation in passing efficiency.
Basketball's version is assist-to-turnover ratio, and DeGraffenreid, a speedy senior guard for the Tar Heels, is No. 1 in the nation, with 102 assists to just 22 turnovers, a 4.64-to-1 ratio.
She can score, as evidenced by several games in the 20s, including a career-high 26 points last season. She can dish - see the Gardner-Webb game on Dec. 31, when she chalked up 15 assists. And she can defend - DeGraffenreid ranks third nationally in steals at 3.6 a game.
Her play is a big reason the Tar Heels are 15-1 and ranked No. 11 in the country heading into a big home weekend.
Rival NC State visits Friday night at 7 p.m., and then on Monday night, the Tar Heels play host to seven-time NCAA champion Connecticut.
"Cetera is having a great year," Hatchell said.
DeGraffenreid is starring despite rarely making headlines as a scorer. She averaged 14.2 points a year ago, continuing a steady increase since her freshman season. This year, she's scoring 7.4 points but is so much more valuable to the Tar Heels, who until last weekend were undefeated and in the nation's top 10.
"I tell the players all the time, `Think about what you can give, not what you can get,'" Hatchell says. "When you think about what you can give, what you get will come back many more times. She's focused on what she can give to the team."
DeGraffenreid can also take what a defense gives her. She's been doing it since middle school, when the Tar Heel coaching staff first got word of her talent. Hatchell says she still has the article sent to her by a UNC fan about the middle-school game in which DeGraffenreid scored 60 points (of her team's 72).
In her first game as a freshman at Smoky Mountain High, DeGraffenreid put up 45 points, earning her mention in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd. By then, the UNC staff already knew who she was.
DeGraffenreid has had a hoop at her house since about second grade. Her father, Al, a former Western Carolina football player, said a friend who coached a youth boys' team wanted Cetera to play for him, but league officials said no because she was a girl. So the girl whose parents named her after the lead singer for the band Chicago played on girls-only teams, first locally, later in Asheville, then in high school and on travel teams.
She paid most attention to WNBA players Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper, and she learned to think the game. DeGraffenreid also developed a calm demeanor that sets her apart from others.
"I guess it's something I've always had," she says. "I think there's a lot of (my parents) in me. I'm just calm, I guess."
Hatchell values that calmness - who wouldn't value the quarterback of the nation's No. 2 scoring offense? - but she wants DeGraffenreid to display more verbal tenacity.
"She pushes the ball up the floor, and she plays the defense we want her to play," Hatchell said. "We would like her to be a more emotional leader. If she does that, she could move our team to another level."
For DeGraffenreid, that next level would be the Final Four. She won't be quarterbacking the football Tar Heels to the Orange Bowl, so piloting these Tar Heels to Indianapolis will have to do.
