This past weekend Shaleyse Smallwood scored 13 points against third seeded Virginia Commonwealth. The previous day she moved into fourth place on Northeastern’s all time scoring list. Her weekend performance earned Smallwood this week’s Northeastern News Player of the Week honors.

Smallwood, a Boston native, started her basketball career when she was 8 years old. The school’s proximity was a major factor in her deciding to come to Northeastern instead of many other schools that recruited her.

During her four-year career her parents have been able to attend many of her games thanks to the school’s location.

Smallwood plays a major role on the women’s basketball team, being one of four seniors this year. This year it fell upon Smallwood and the other seniors’ shoulders to lead the team.

Smallwood led the team by example this year, but said she has felt that she has been in a leadership role of some sorts for most of her Northeastern career.

“Myself, along with the other seniors, definitely stepped up, and we didn’t give up even though we started slow, but we stepped up,” she said.

Smallwood doesn’t like to keep track of her statistics; however, they speak for themselves. She moved into fourth place all-time in scoring, passing Maralene Zwarich, but she said she was unaware she was approaching that mark. She passed that record during the Colonial Athletic Association tournament game against George Mason.

Smallwood has been on the team since before the change from the America East Conference to the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). She said she has enjoyed the change.

“The CAA is a much more competitive league, we travel a lot more, we have a lot from down south and those girls are a lot bigger too. I’m glad we changed,” she said.

Looking back on her four years, Smallwood said she isn’t regretful of anything. She said in her college career that she has grown both athletically and academically.

Smallwood is a human services major, but she doesn’t plan to go into the work force once she graduates. After graduating she said she has plans to play basketball professionally overseas.

“I want to try and play overseas, somewhere in Europe. [I’m] not sure where, whatever region is good,” she said. “This is my love, and I really don’t see myself not playing. I will go try it out and see how it is. I have a lot of friends and previous team[mates] who have gone overseas and still live overseas.”

– Nathan Vaughan,

News Correspondent