Alyssa Charlston wanted to take one last look around the arena, moments before tipoff, just to revel in the position her team was in. She looked across from her and saw the name written out on the opponents’ jerseys — “UConn.”
Jessica Greene | Argonaut
It was that moment, she said, the reality of the situation hit her. Connecticut, a team that had never missed the NCAA Tournament for as long as Charlston has been alive, was Idaho’s reward for its WAC Tournament Championship win in 2013.
Idaho was in Storrs, Conn., for its first round NCAA Tournament pairing. Idaho was a No. 16 seed, while UConn held a No. 1 seed.
“Right from the tipoff I was looking around and I was like, their jerseys literally say UConn,” Charlston said. “I had been thinking about this since fifth grade. Either you dream to play with them or against them, and it was crazy the fact that UConn was truly on their jerseys when you’re going for that tipoff.”
UConn eviscerated Idaho 105-37 that day, but that’s not what Charlston recalls from the afternoon.
She recollects what it was like to face what seemed like super-human talent coming at her non-stop for 40 minutes. Charlston remembers that her team was also a Division I team that was on the court with them, learning what it’s like to play against the best team in the nation.
She recalls an experience that gave the senior captain perspective heading into this season.
“It’s like, those girls dominated in high school, and to play against all those kind of players was humbling, but it gave us a lot of feel for the next year,” Charlston said. “We’ve played against the best. What do we have to fear, really? There’s no one else that can come in our gym and play better than UConn.”
That kind of thinking paid off in a historic season for Charlston and the Vandals, cementing the senior’s legacy as one of the greatest in Idaho women’s basketball history.
Legacy
All Charlston said she wants to be remembered for is leaving Idaho’s program in a better place than she found it.
If she wants to leave the program in a better place, it’s safe to say that’s been accomplished already.
Putting her four-year career into context, Charlston came into a program in 2010 that hadn’t achieved a winning record since 2005 and a program that hadn’t been to an NCAA Tournament since 1985.
Now, she’ll be leaving a 20-win program behind, transitioning into the Big Sky Conference next season.
Charlston’s third straight season making an All-WAC team culminated with Idaho’s first regular season conference championship since 1985 — with Idaho running through the WAC at 15-1 this season.
If she has anything to do with it, the program will qualify for back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time since the program was incepted in 1974. Idaho is overwhelmingly favored to win the WAC Tournament this week as its No. 1 seed.
“She’s special, she’s a part of some really special years at Idaho and she’ll always remember that,” Newlee said. “She’s a humongous part of that and she can be proud for the rest of her life of what she’s done here, the height she’s helped elevate the program to.”
Charlston still has at least one more week to finish what her legacy at Idaho will be. Whether or not Idaho completes the greatest season in program history will depend on what happens at the Orleans Arena this weekend in Las Vegas.
With a run through the conference tournament, Idaho will have a 25-win season and an opportunity to grab as high as a 12-seed or 13-seed pairing in the NCAA Tournament. That means Idaho would get to play a team far more manageable than the beasts of UConn.
Regardless, Idaho is already on the map. National women’s basketball pundits have pegged Idaho into the NCAA Tournament all season. The program has become a point of pride for a school that hasn’t gotten much of it from football or men’s basketball.
Charlston has arguably become the most recognizable face to Idaho’s basketball resurgence on the women’s side.
“I was at a luncheon … and a booster was thanking me and our team for putting Idaho on the map and that’s what you want, you want to put your team and your name out with the best of them,” Charlston said. “You want to compete with the best and be thought of with the best. We’re still getting there, all the media attention and the RPI stuff and getting to the tournament I think has helped us.
“I think since it’s been so long before now since we’ve been to the NCAA Tournament, since we’ve won the WAC, refreshing those records, making them more current. That’s what you do, that’s what you want to do, that’s your goal.”
Program changer
Newlee remembers the day he won the recruiting battle for Charlston.
Big 12 power Iowa State made Charlston one of the handful of players they offered scholarships to. Schools all over the Big Sky and Ivy League were heavily interested. She had unofficial visits to Oregon State and Washington State.
Iowa State offered her a scholarship, along with four other girls, for only four spots on the team. Three of the players committed on the spot. The fourth committed weeks before Charlston was scheduled to visit Ames, Iowa. Her offer was pulled and some schools cooled off, because those coaches assumed she was a Cyclone commit. In the end, Charlston made the decision between Idaho and West Coast Conference program Saint Mary’s.
Newlee had the ultimate sales pitch, in the end.
In so many words, Newlee asked Charlston if she wanted to be just another part to an already successful program, or did she want to come to Idaho and build something from the ground up and be remembered as the catalyst for that.
Newlee had one message for his staff, after he got that commitment.
“Our program just changed,” he remembers telling his assistants. “We just got Alyssa Charlston.”
Newlee saw what everyone else saw, the summer following her sophomore and junior seasons at Eastlake (Snohomish, Wash.) High School — a match-up nightmare.
For four years, that’s what Charlston presented for any team that’s stepped on the court against Idaho. It’s the very reason Newlee targeted her as the centerpiece for the offense he wanted to run at Idaho.
At 6-foot-1, she can match-up anywhere on the court. She came into Idaho as a guard who would take defenders off the dribble and set up at the 3-point line, with the ability to post if needed. Her game has moved more inside out as her career has progressed, the nightmare match-up for opposing coaches has remained.
“When I saw her, I knew it was the kind of kid I wanted, because of our offense and the way we run it,” Newlee said. “I knew when she got here and we started working with her that she was going to be the best 4 (versatile post position player) I’ve ever had, just because of her physical talent and how it fit perfectly with what we do from an offensive standpoint.”
The only part of that game she didn’t necessarily have coming out of high school was the tendency to shoot from range. Newlee got that out of her right away her freshman year. Her first ever basket for Idaho was a trey against Eastern Oregon, which followed her hitting three of them in an exhibition against Lewis-Clark State.
The long road
Newlee had a vision for his new star recruit. That vision meant NCAA Tournament appearances and WAC Championships by now. Earlier in her career, she was challenged by adversity.
Idaho was senior-laden, during Charlston’s freshman season, and the team battled through the WAC to an appearance in the conference tournament semi-final — before falling short to Nevada.
At the time, she was just a freshman coming off the bench, appearing in every game and starting sparingly. She was scoring 6.2 points per game and inserting herself into the lineup on a regular basis.
From the start, it was a clear she was going to have a key role in the program. Once those seniors graduated, the pressure of leadership quickly shifted to Charlston, even if she only had one season under her belt.
It was a tough transition at first, Idaho limped out to a 5-17 start her sophomore season, before recovering to finish 12-20 after another conference tournament semi-final end to the season.
“I think she knew that (it would be difficult at first). She was fitting in with the other girls who were here before and she was getting better, our team was up and down,” Newlee said. “We had stuff going on, she knew when that class graduated, it was her, it was her team, it was her program, it was her time to lead … Everything really clicked, and I think she knew ‘hey it is my time to step it up.'”
Charlston remembers her sophomore season as her hardest on campus. She turned to her parents for help on staying positive and taking the losses in stride. Idaho finished winning three of its last four that year, with Charlston having the first of her first-team All-WAC seasons.
“Alyssa just has the leadership gene in her, she’s always so vocal,” former Idaho teammate Jessica Graham said. “I would never say that she’s shy, she’s always had it in her. I just think it progressed as the years went on.”
Charlston’s collegiate career has somewhat mirrored the challenges she faced at the high school level playing in the greater Seattle area. Eastlake Wolves coach Scott Sartorius was in the process of trying to build a successful program, when Charlston joined his team as a sophomore.
It only took until her junior season in 2009 for Charlston to insert herself as an all-league performer, and for Eastlake to breakthrough to the state tournament for the first time since 1997.
“She was always the hardest worker on my team and I think that’s a coach’s dream. I don’t think it comes along very often where you get the most talented player to be your hardest worker and I got to experience that for her in her high school career and the leadership that comes from that,” Sartorius said. “I was trying to develop the whole culture, what she could do in terms of modeling, how to act, how to be a leader and she created a trend of hard work in that program by who she was.”
Beyond legacy
Newlee is putting Charlston up with the best players he’s ever coached, and he’s coached some good ones. Specifically he brought up Natalie Doma, who took his final team at Idaho State to the NCAA Tournament while graduating as the Big Sky’s all-time leader in points.
Doma ended up getting an opportunity with the WNBA’s Seattle Storm as an undrafted free agent before playing a season overseas.
The physical and specialized nature of the WNBA may keep Charlston from breaking through in that league. It won’t keep her from the European game, where her current style of play would fit in perfectly.
She’s already getting messaged and texts from agents and scouts wondering about her post-collegiate plans.
“It’s something that I’m probably going to plan on doing, overseas,” she said. “I’m getting Facebook requests and messages and stuff and I can’t respond to any of that but the goal is to play overseas after this. Because I don’t think I’m done quite yet, I have to play a little more.”
Charlston is a 3.9 GPA student majoring in broadcast journalism with plenty of experience to put into that career path if she so chooses. Though she can’t imagine what her life would be like without the liberating feeling of having a basketball in her hand.
“It’s a way to take out the competitive side of things out of daily life, things that shouldn’t be competitive,” she said. “People have that thing that will take you out of the real world for a while and it’s ridiculous because you’re playing this whole game and you’re complete focus is on that.
“That’s such a cool thing that everything can be centered on one thing and you’re completely out of your whole life and then you go back at the end once the buzzer goes, so that’s what I love about it. It’s just a great diversion when things aren’t going right.”