Glance at a stat sheet and it’s obvious that Tamika Dukes provides points and rebounds for the UAB women’s basketball team.
The 6-foot Huffman High product averages 12.6 points and a team-high 7.1 rebounds for a Blazer team that has ripped off six consecutive victories and leads the way in Conference USA.
She always contributes something that doesn’t necessarily show up in the stat sheet. She also contributes a blueprint for how things are done in college basketball for a group of talented UAB freshmen.
“Those kids are looking up to her,” said UAB coach Audra Smith of her freshmen who are known as the Super Six. “There are situations they’ve never been in before, just in terms of being a Division I student athlete. I think she definitely sets the tone and sets the example for the rest of team.”
Dukes said she’s accustomed to being a team leader. She played that role at Huffman and continued to do that at Wallace StateHanceville Community College, where she averaged 17.9 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. She expected the same role when arriving at UAB but had to sit out the 2007-08 season because of a leg stress fracture.
The fracture happened “when I was at Wallace but I didn’t know I had it,” Dukes said. “I was just playing and thought that maybe I got kicked or something. I had a knot and it was really hurting. My first practice here, I was out on the track and my body wouldn’t allow me to run. I needed to go to the doctor and that’s when I found out.”
Dukes had a rod placed in her fibula to help the healing process. She returned to the court for the 2008-09 season. She played in 29 games, starting 20, and averaged 8.8 points and a team-best 6.2 rebounds per game.
“It took me a whole year for the pain to go away,” Dukes said.
Ask Dukes about injuries these days and she downplays them. On Tuesday, she said a slightly sprained ankle is her only concern these days.
Smith tells a different tale. “She’s hurting but plays through it because it’s so important to her,” said Smith, whose team is 10-6 overall and 4-0 in conference play heading into Sunday’s game against Houston at Bartow Arena. “The other shin has been giving her a problem because you start to compensate. Now she has tiny little fractures starting to form on the healthy leg. Some days Tamika just can’t practice because of the pain.”
Dukes has persevered and helped a young team maneuver through a difficult nonconference schedule and mature into a threat to win a C-USA title. Each member of the freshman class — Jala Harris, Amber Jones, Nakia McDaniel, Lakenya Lowe, Khalilah Watson and Jasmine Green — has been in the starting lineup at some point this season and Harris is the team leader in points (14.8 per game) and assists (3.5 per game).
Dukes thought this team had a shot at being successful, even though Erica Simpson is the only other senior on the roster.
“I really did because of the type of people they are, being mature for this age,” Dukes said. “They know basketball and they want to win. When you have a team with a bunch of girls who want to win, of course it’s going to come together.”