O'Brien forges trail for w. basketball

As Princeton students scan the Course Offerings catalogue over the next few weeks, most will keep their eyes peeled for the perfect class — one that combines some extracurricular interest with the area of study they have chosen to pursue.

Unfortunately "Transatlantic Approaches to MC Hammer's 'U Can't Touch This' " and "Beirut and the Human Response" will exist forever only in the imagination.

One can then imagine the sense of serendipity that Katy O'Brien, a junior pursuing a degree in Political Economy and the starting point guard for the Princeton women's basketball team, must have felt upon learning at the beginning of this school year of a course to be taught in the Fall semester called "The Political Economy of Sports."

"It is very relevant to my experience as a student-athlete," O'Brien said of the class. "We talk a lot about how sport has changed over the years with the changing economic incentives that leagues and teams face. It gives me a good perspective on how much bigger sport is than what we do in the gym every day."

At the same time, though, what O'Brien is doing in the gym is quickly becoming more and more important to the young women's basketball team, whose season begins at home on November 19 against Monmouth.

O'Brien has been named one of the three captains on a team that returns all five starters from last season (7-20 overall, 4-10 Ivy League), but which is composed primarily of underclassmen. She hopes that, under her leadership, the team will no longer have to point to its youth as an excuse for poor play.

"People turn to me for play-related questions," O'Brien said, "about the offense and such. As a point guard, it is important to be a leader on and off the floor, and to communicate well with the coaches so that I can relay information to the team during games and practices."

Fellow captain, sophomore forward Casey Lockwood, has the utmost confidence in O'Brien's ability to help the team achieve its goals for the upcoming season.

"I think it's a great position for her," Lockwood said, "and she will only continue to grow into the role as she becomes more comfortable with it. It's going to be important for us to have a solid leader this year because we are trying to turn our program around. I think she's already begun to show she can help take us to the next level."

As much as the team will depend on O'Brien for leadership, it is equally important that she build on her already impressive numbers from last season. On the offensive side of the ball, she led the team in assists per game (3.2), three-pointers made (61) and three-point percentage (38.9). More importantly, because of her growing understanding of the offense, O'Brien said she now feels confident as the player that others count on to create scoring opportunities.

Defensively, O'Brien also put up impressive numbers last season, leading the team with an average of two steals per game.

"I'm not very tall [5'7"]," O'Brien said, "so it's going to be important for me to box out and always be in position to help out and keep my man from scoring." As her basketball game develops, O'Brien has observed how her experience as a collegiate athlete at Princeton has helped her mature off the court as well.

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"Growing up playing basketball," O'Brien explained, "my life was always centered on the next practice or on who was coming out to my next game. [At Princeton], my work ethic has entirely changed. Our coaches have pushed us so hard because they want to see us succeed. They want to bring out the maximum potential in their players, and it's impossible for this not to translate to other areas of life."

When they start customizing classes for you at the world's best university, it is a safe bet you are applying yourself pretty well.