[1/9/03]Genice Terry has run the gamut of basketball emotions in her short college career.

High school superstar on a state championship team. Division I basketball signee at South Alabama. Division I bench-warmer at the same school. Junior college standout. And now, soon-to-be Southeastern Conference starter.

The former Raymond High standout is set for her first career start in an Ole Miss uniform tonight when the Lady Rebels tackle Florida in Oxford.

One coach would say, ” I told you so.”

Vicksburg girls basketball coach Mike Coleman coached Terry for two seasons at Raymond High and was her coach on the Mean Green Machine, an AAU team that won a national championship when Terry was a 14 year old.

“When she was 16 years old we were in a national tournament in Tennessee and she was scoring 22 points and 24 points a game,” Coleman said. “All the coaches were saying what about (University of Georgia’s Ebony) Felder and so and so. We were like, what about Genice Terry?’

“There was a newspaper guy from Tennessee there and he was saying Genice Terry was great and wanted to talk about her. All the college coaches were saying was that she wasn’t good enough for that level.

“We couldn’t believe that the only one who could recognize how good she was was a newspaper reporter.”

So Terry, a very intelligent, quiet leader, went virtually unnoticed as Raymond High went on to win back-to-back state championships.

She was named valedictorian of her senior class and accepted a scholarship to play at South Alabama. Appearing in only 12 games at USA and seeing that her future was not as a Lady Jaguar, Terry transferred to Meridian Community College for one season.

“Conditioning-wise, she had to adjust to SEC ball, but she has shown great improvement,” Ole Miss coach Ron Aldy said. “She has gotten much more focused and has continued to improve. Now, she has established herself as someone we really rely on.”

Even Aldy was not sold right off the bat after seeing Terry at Meridian, but the diminutive guard had an ace-in-the-hole in assistant coach Gil Thompson.

Thompson coached Terry for a season at Raymond before becoming an assistant with the Lady Rebels.

“There is no question that having coach Thompson here has helped her,” Aldy said. “He helped Genice and the coaches because he knew what she was made of.”

After convincing coaches to give her a shot, Terry has not disappointed.

Mostly a bench player early in the season, Terry scored 16 in a win over Temple and 20 in the Lady Rebels’ loss to Florida International. Soon after the second win, the coaches decided it was Terry’s turn to step into a starting position.

Starting her first game against the University of Florida is as good a start as any, Aldy said.

“They are good again,” Aldy said of the Lady Gators. “But there aren’t any pushovers in this league. We are at home and it’s just like any other game, we have to take care of our business.”

Although she is starting at an unnatural point-guard position she played off-guard throughout high school Coleman is one that wasn’t surprised that she signed with Ole Miss and even less surprised that she is getting the starting nod.

“We always knew she could play, because she always played to the level of her competition,” Coleman said. “… She’s a real smart kid that makes great decisions out there and that’s what you need out of a point guard. So, this doesn’t surprise me at all.”