Comeback Mentality
12/15/2022 2:54:00 PM | Women's Basketball
The dictionary defines an outlier as 'a person or thing that is atypical within a particular group, class or category.'
Peyton Scott is an outlier.
"She's just different," said Miami Women's Basketball head coach DeUnna Hendrix. "She just attacks things differently."
And when Scott suffered a torn right ACL in the last game of the 2021-22 season, the RedHawks' star decided she was going to make it back to the court sooner than anyone could predict or imagine.
"A lot of times [during my recovery, I'd hear], 'It doesn't look like that.' Or, 'People don't run at three months.' But I'm not everybody," said Scott. "And that's what I had to keep telling myself.
"This isn't everyone's story. There are outliers for a reason, and why not me?
"I was just trying to instill confidence in myself too. I told them, 'I'm not going to be the nine-to-12 months. We need to prep for me to come back at seven or eight.'
"Once people started to see me hitting milestones maybe before I should have, they were like, 'Okay, we'll take you seriously!"
Scott suffered her injury on March 5, and had surgery a few weeks later. When it was time for rehab to begin, she noticed photos of athletes on the wall at physical therapist Jessica Brechin's office, including an image of former Miami quarterback Gus Ragland. Ragland had torn his ACL in April 2016 and returned after only six months to lead the then 0-6 RedHawks to six consecutive wins and a bowl appearance.
"They said Gus was the smoothest, quickest ACL they've ever seen, the golden standard, and I was like: I want THAT!'" Scott laughed. "There's a spot right next to him [on the wall], and I'm thinking, 'My picture's going to go right there'…
"The standard was set: Come back before anyone thought I would, because I'm capable of it."
Scott and Ragland exchanged a few text messages shortly after that, with the former Miami Football standout encouraging Scott to trust the experts around her during the rehab process.
"I said, 'The best thing you can do is listen to the people you're working with," Ragland recalled. "They know what they're doing.
"Every time you go into the physical therapy studio, work your tail off, and listen to them. Don't overdo it; sometimes people try to get over-ambitious and stretch the boundaries. But when they tell you it's time to go, it's time to go.'"
The journey back to the hardwood wasn't easy for Scott. She spent the first couple of weeks post-operation in bed, often 'sleeping 23 out of 24 hours of the day.' Scott tried to return to campus after the first week, but ended up going back home because she just couldn't physically do enough on her own. "I'm very grateful for my mom," she said.
Hendrix and her staff did everything they could to help during that time, from going to pick up food to setting up Zoom calls to let Scott watch film of practices and workouts. "We were super-intentional on getting somebody like Peyton to get back to the task. How do we progress as fast as we can? What are your focal points?," said Hendrix. "And it was constant.
"What can you focus on, even though you can't move? You can focus on your diet. You can focus on studying the game…
"And then we celebrated everything. Any time she halfway moved that thing, we were celebrating it."
"When you're immersed in this culture, you want to be a part of it," said Scott. "Once I got back here [to Oxford], it made things a lot better, just to be around the team and be able to do things actively.
"But that first month was tough."
Scott admitted that as an athlete, her biggest fear had always been an ACL tear. Since March, her perspective has changed. She now calls her injury her biggest blessing.
"I've been able to take a step back and realize what's important and be grateful," Scott said.
She's grateful for learning to walk and run again once she was able to set the crutches aside.
She's grateful for the time she could spend refining her jump shot and perfecting her ballhandling.
She's grateful for getting to watch from the sidelines and pick her coaches' brains, as someone who wants to coach once her playing days are done.
She's grateful for learning how to work again.
For Scott, it's all about perspective.
"I think I had gotten content in a way with how I was working, and I think my ACL woke me up," she said. "It was a blessing for me, to where I'm becoming a better player because I have to learn to play differently, and I have to learn to play smarter.
"You take the game for granted sometimes. It was my dream to play Division I college basketball, and I felt that for the first year or two, but then you get into a contentment of, 'Okay, I'm here. I did make it.'
"There was a contentment with 'We're not winning, but I'm doing enough.'…but [in reality], it's never enough.'"
Scott was officially cleared for full-contact practice in late October, just seven months after surgery, and began working toward a return to the RedHawks' lineup. "It didn't surprise us when she was ready to go," said Hendrix. "She doesn't ask questions and she doesn't hesitate….I tell her all the time, 'Peyton Scott is still going to be Peyton Scott.'
"Her first practice back after she gets cleared, we do a transition advantage drill and she takes off from the foul line and does a reverse layup. No thought, no hesitation: If she's able to go, she's going to go."
"I think just knowing who I am, I know if I want to get back at seven months, then I will," Scott explained. "If I'm told to do something, I'm going to do it. If I need to be in at PT three times a week, I'm going to be in there three times a week and do what you tell me to do, so I just saw that pay off."
Scott made her 2022-23 debut in the fourth game of the season, playing eight minutes off the bench at Western Kentucky. She followed that up with 15 minutes of court time at Evansville before returning home on Nov. 28 vs. Loyola for her first game action at Millett Hall since February.
After not making a jump shot in her first two games back, Scott buried a three-pointer from the left corner midway through the second quarter to spark a Miami run. Every big play seemed to breed another one. She deflected a pass, high-fiving a fan in the courtside seats to celebrate. She took a charge. She used a crossover dribble in transition to set up a three-point play. She screamed for the ball on the right wing and immediately drained a triple, holding the follow-through to admire it for a moment. She cut hard to the lane and knocked down a midrange turnaround jumper.
When the buzzer sounded, Scott had racked up 13 points in 15 minutes.
Final score: Miami 79, Loyola 53.
Peyton Scott was back.
"I think it was a breakthrough for me for a lot of reasons," Scott said later. "In that game, I was able to see what I had been working on since May come to fruition. How I've been working on my catch-and-shoot three. How I've been working on being more intentional with my movements.
"Anytime you can see the ball go through the hoop, it's good...obviously the team lifted me up and the fans were great and we had a great game…but just being able to have that confidence of knowing I'm still capable of doing what I want to do and helping the team how I want to was a cool moment."
Scott made her first start of the season later that week, playing 24 minutes in a victory over Eastern Kentucky. "With a few more minutes added on here at home, you started to feel that she felt good," Hendrix said. "Going back into practice after that [Loyola] game, there was just a different confidence, where she's like, 'Okay, I'm back in with the team as opposed to coaching from the sideline and waiting my turn.'"
As her workload has steadily increased over the past four weeks, Scott continues to put up impressive numbers for the Red and White. The All-MAC first-team preseason pick is shooting a career-best 46.3% from the field this year with a scoring average that's already crept into double figures (10.4 ppg). She also has racked up an otherworldly assist-to-turnover ratio of 15 to 1.
"I have always prided myself on being a versatile player and one that doesn't just fill up one column of the stat sheet," Scott said. "When there's a category, I want to lead it."
From a historical standpoint, Scott is just seven points away from 1,500 in her career and only needs eight more rebounds to give her 500 as a RedHawk. She could reach those marks as soon as this weekend, and would become only the third player in program history to accomplish both feats.
The senior guard is looking forward to using her extra year of eligibility next season and plans to finish a Master's degree in Sports Leadership and Management from Miami, which means she's on pace to rewrite nearly every page of the RedHawks' record book between now and then.
"She's an exceptional player, and she's done exceptional things individually," Hendrix said. "I don't think she cares about the [numbers]; she would rather win…and I think for her to see through this process, to get us to a point of winning, says a lot about who she is as a person."
"It's gratifying, especially to do it at this level," Scott said. "Just to take a step back, and see: This is what you wanted growing up…I wanted to play at the next level, at the highest level.
"This is what you drove an hour to AAU for. This is what you drove hundreds of miles to go play tournaments for. This is what you were in the gym at 6 a.m. for. All those things stack up…
"I don't really play to hit these milestones, but when they come, it's a good reminder: You are putting in the work and you are making a difference and you are making an impact.
"The milestones are going to come, but the one I want, obviously, is the banner up in the rafters."
With Mid-American Conference play set to tip off as the calendar turns to 2023, Scott has goals of bringing a league championship back to Oxford. The non-conference schedule has allowed her to find a rhythm in the RedHawks' rotation, and she has high hopes for what her team can accomplish this winter.
"I think the biggest thing for us in going from 'I think we can' to 'I know we can' is our mentality," Scott said. "No matter how many people are playing or who's on the floor, we have to have confidence that everyone is capable of doing their job– to know that we can win and we will win and that we're almost there."
If Miami achieves its goals in 2023, it will be due in large part to the outlier, with a 'different' sort of player making an incredible difference over the next three months.
And if 2022 has proven anything, it's that when Peyton Scott puts her mind to accomplishing something she's set out to do, it just might happen.
Find more Front Row Features at MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures.
Scott and the RedHawks are back in action this weekend at Millett Hall, hosting Bradley on Friday, Dec. 16 at 7 pm and Oakland on Saturday, Dec. 17 at 5:30 p.m. Click HERE to purchase your tickets and support Miami Women's Basketball!
Peyton Scott is an outlier.
"She's just different," said Miami Women's Basketball head coach DeUnna Hendrix. "She just attacks things differently."
And when Scott suffered a torn right ACL in the last game of the 2021-22 season, the RedHawks' star decided she was going to make it back to the court sooner than anyone could predict or imagine.
"A lot of times [during my recovery, I'd hear], 'It doesn't look like that.' Or, 'People don't run at three months.' But I'm not everybody," said Scott. "And that's what I had to keep telling myself.
"This isn't everyone's story. There are outliers for a reason, and why not me?
"I was just trying to instill confidence in myself too. I told them, 'I'm not going to be the nine-to-12 months. We need to prep for me to come back at seven or eight.'
"Once people started to see me hitting milestones maybe before I should have, they were like, 'Okay, we'll take you seriously!"
Scott suffered her injury on March 5, and had surgery a few weeks later. When it was time for rehab to begin, she noticed photos of athletes on the wall at physical therapist Jessica Brechin's office, including an image of former Miami quarterback Gus Ragland. Ragland had torn his ACL in April 2016 and returned after only six months to lead the then 0-6 RedHawks to six consecutive wins and a bowl appearance.
"They said Gus was the smoothest, quickest ACL they've ever seen, the golden standard, and I was like: I want THAT!'" Scott laughed. "There's a spot right next to him [on the wall], and I'm thinking, 'My picture's going to go right there'…
"The standard was set: Come back before anyone thought I would, because I'm capable of it."
Scott and Ragland exchanged a few text messages shortly after that, with the former Miami Football standout encouraging Scott to trust the experts around her during the rehab process.
"I said, 'The best thing you can do is listen to the people you're working with," Ragland recalled. "They know what they're doing.
"Every time you go into the physical therapy studio, work your tail off, and listen to them. Don't overdo it; sometimes people try to get over-ambitious and stretch the boundaries. But when they tell you it's time to go, it's time to go.'"
The journey back to the hardwood wasn't easy for Scott. She spent the first couple of weeks post-operation in bed, often 'sleeping 23 out of 24 hours of the day.' Scott tried to return to campus after the first week, but ended up going back home because she just couldn't physically do enough on her own. "I'm very grateful for my mom," she said.
Hendrix and her staff did everything they could to help during that time, from going to pick up food to setting up Zoom calls to let Scott watch film of practices and workouts. "We were super-intentional on getting somebody like Peyton to get back to the task. How do we progress as fast as we can? What are your focal points?," said Hendrix. "And it was constant.
"What can you focus on, even though you can't move? You can focus on your diet. You can focus on studying the game…
"And then we celebrated everything. Any time she halfway moved that thing, we were celebrating it."
"When you're immersed in this culture, you want to be a part of it," said Scott. "Once I got back here [to Oxford], it made things a lot better, just to be around the team and be able to do things actively.
"But that first month was tough."
Scott admitted that as an athlete, her biggest fear had always been an ACL tear. Since March, her perspective has changed. She now calls her injury her biggest blessing.
"I've been able to take a step back and realize what's important and be grateful," Scott said.
She's grateful for learning to walk and run again once she was able to set the crutches aside.
She's grateful for the time she could spend refining her jump shot and perfecting her ballhandling.
She's grateful for getting to watch from the sidelines and pick her coaches' brains, as someone who wants to coach once her playing days are done.
She's grateful for learning how to work again.
For Scott, it's all about perspective.
"I think I had gotten content in a way with how I was working, and I think my ACL woke me up," she said. "It was a blessing for me, to where I'm becoming a better player because I have to learn to play differently, and I have to learn to play smarter.
"You take the game for granted sometimes. It was my dream to play Division I college basketball, and I felt that for the first year or two, but then you get into a contentment of, 'Okay, I'm here. I did make it.'
"There was a contentment with 'We're not winning, but I'm doing enough.'…but [in reality], it's never enough.'"
Scott was officially cleared for full-contact practice in late October, just seven months after surgery, and began working toward a return to the RedHawks' lineup. "It didn't surprise us when she was ready to go," said Hendrix. "She doesn't ask questions and she doesn't hesitate….I tell her all the time, 'Peyton Scott is still going to be Peyton Scott.'
"Her first practice back after she gets cleared, we do a transition advantage drill and she takes off from the foul line and does a reverse layup. No thought, no hesitation: If she's able to go, she's going to go."
"I think just knowing who I am, I know if I want to get back at seven months, then I will," Scott explained. "If I'm told to do something, I'm going to do it. If I need to be in at PT three times a week, I'm going to be in there three times a week and do what you tell me to do, so I just saw that pay off."
Scott made her 2022-23 debut in the fourth game of the season, playing eight minutes off the bench at Western Kentucky. She followed that up with 15 minutes of court time at Evansville before returning home on Nov. 28 vs. Loyola for her first game action at Millett Hall since February.
After not making a jump shot in her first two games back, Scott buried a three-pointer from the left corner midway through the second quarter to spark a Miami run. Every big play seemed to breed another one. She deflected a pass, high-fiving a fan in the courtside seats to celebrate. She took a charge. She used a crossover dribble in transition to set up a three-point play. She screamed for the ball on the right wing and immediately drained a triple, holding the follow-through to admire it for a moment. She cut hard to the lane and knocked down a midrange turnaround jumper.When the buzzer sounded, Scott had racked up 13 points in 15 minutes.
Final score: Miami 79, Loyola 53.
Peyton Scott was back.
"I think it was a breakthrough for me for a lot of reasons," Scott said later. "In that game, I was able to see what I had been working on since May come to fruition. How I've been working on my catch-and-shoot three. How I've been working on being more intentional with my movements.
"Anytime you can see the ball go through the hoop, it's good...obviously the team lifted me up and the fans were great and we had a great game…but just being able to have that confidence of knowing I'm still capable of doing what I want to do and helping the team how I want to was a cool moment."
Scott made her first start of the season later that week, playing 24 minutes in a victory over Eastern Kentucky. "With a few more minutes added on here at home, you started to feel that she felt good," Hendrix said. "Going back into practice after that [Loyola] game, there was just a different confidence, where she's like, 'Okay, I'm back in with the team as opposed to coaching from the sideline and waiting my turn.'"
As her workload has steadily increased over the past four weeks, Scott continues to put up impressive numbers for the Red and White. The All-MAC first-team preseason pick is shooting a career-best 46.3% from the field this year with a scoring average that's already crept into double figures (10.4 ppg). She also has racked up an otherworldly assist-to-turnover ratio of 15 to 1.
"I have always prided myself on being a versatile player and one that doesn't just fill up one column of the stat sheet," Scott said. "When there's a category, I want to lead it."
From a historical standpoint, Scott is just seven points away from 1,500 in her career and only needs eight more rebounds to give her 500 as a RedHawk. She could reach those marks as soon as this weekend, and would become only the third player in program history to accomplish both feats.
The senior guard is looking forward to using her extra year of eligibility next season and plans to finish a Master's degree in Sports Leadership and Management from Miami, which means she's on pace to rewrite nearly every page of the RedHawks' record book between now and then."She's an exceptional player, and she's done exceptional things individually," Hendrix said. "I don't think she cares about the [numbers]; she would rather win…and I think for her to see through this process, to get us to a point of winning, says a lot about who she is as a person."
"It's gratifying, especially to do it at this level," Scott said. "Just to take a step back, and see: This is what you wanted growing up…I wanted to play at the next level, at the highest level.
"This is what you drove an hour to AAU for. This is what you drove hundreds of miles to go play tournaments for. This is what you were in the gym at 6 a.m. for. All those things stack up…
"I don't really play to hit these milestones, but when they come, it's a good reminder: You are putting in the work and you are making a difference and you are making an impact.
"The milestones are going to come, but the one I want, obviously, is the banner up in the rafters."
With Mid-American Conference play set to tip off as the calendar turns to 2023, Scott has goals of bringing a league championship back to Oxford. The non-conference schedule has allowed her to find a rhythm in the RedHawks' rotation, and she has high hopes for what her team can accomplish this winter.
"I think the biggest thing for us in going from 'I think we can' to 'I know we can' is our mentality," Scott said. "No matter how many people are playing or who's on the floor, we have to have confidence that everyone is capable of doing their job– to know that we can win and we will win and that we're almost there."
If Miami achieves its goals in 2023, it will be due in large part to the outlier, with a 'different' sort of player making an incredible difference over the next three months.
And if 2022 has proven anything, it's that when Peyton Scott puts her mind to accomplishing something she's set out to do, it just might happen.
Find more Front Row Features at MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures.
Scott and the RedHawks are back in action this weekend at Millett Hall, hosting Bradley on Friday, Dec. 16 at 7 pm and Oakland on Saturday, Dec. 17 at 5:30 p.m. Click HERE to purchase your tickets and support Miami Women's Basketball!
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