ANAHEIM — – Scott Sangren knew something was off.
The third-year coach of Connelly’s girls basketball team was watching his brand-new junior forward Deepali Ernest play for the first time.
When things would get complicated – an out-of-the-ordinary whistle or anything outside of what one might encounter in a pickup game – he noticed Ernest looked lost but didn’t say anything.
Three games into the season, however, he spoke up.
“I asked her, ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on when the whistle blows?’” Sangren recalled. “She said, ‘Coach, not really.’”
She was already a major contributor on the team, but Sangren would find out that she had never really played organized basketball – at least not to the level of high school ball in the United States.
“It was embarrassing,” Ernest said of her first few games. “But (Sangren) is exaggerating. … He would say, ‘Two-four, four-four defense’ or something like that, and I was like, ‘What?’ I was lost that first game.”
Five months earlier, Ernest left Bangalore, India, where she was born and had lived all her life, to take residence in Orange County. Much of her father’s family lives in the U.S., but her mother’s side still resides in India.
Now 16 years old and 5-foot-10, Ernest only started playing basketball at 14, when a coach at a nearby international school named Prem Kumar began teaching children in her high-rise apartment complex in Bangalore. At first, her competition was mostly against boys.
“You don’t find many girls playing basketball (in India),” Ernest said. “So I started playing against guys 16, 17 and 18 (years old). People would think, ‘Is she crazy? She’s going to get killed.’ But I learned a lot from them.”
Those beginnings turned into loosely organized contests between high-rise communities, called interproperty matches. She was her team’s captain and it never lost a tournament. It was also a healthy diversion from school in a country where athletics are not involved with educational institutions.
“In India, it’s all school, school school,” Ernest said. “There’s no sport in school at all. Interproperty matches were something you could look forward to on Saturdays.”
The basic rules for interproperty matches were similar to U.S. basketball but lacked the structure of the American high school game.
“We would just run all over the place and shoot,” Ernest said. “That’s the big difference.”
That’s why the first game for Connelly was so overwhelming, but she still showed her immediate promise by leading the Koalas in scoring and rebounding (10 points, 11 rebounds) in a 38-27 loss to Calvary Chapel of Downey.
Sangren noticed her potential quickly, as well, when he had an assistant coach film Ernest when he couldn’t make it to tryouts. He also got a tip from another assistant, Jason Manley, who coached Ernest on the Connelly tennis team in the fall.
“(Manley) told me she was big, athletic and crushes the ball,” Sangren said. “Then I saw that video and all I needed to see was two layups. I knew she could play.”
Sangren was correct in his assessment, because Ernest’s contribution – team highs in scoring (12.5 points), rebounding (13.5 per game) and assists (1.5) – is probably the main reason why the Koalas are 13-8 and having their most successful season in recent history.
She’s also been embraced, by all accounts, in the Connelly community. She only has a hint of an accent (she also speaks Punjab and Hindi) and said her only real culture shock was when she attended a co-ed dance with the boys from Servite. Bumping up against boys on the basketball court is one thing, but on the dance floor? Not just yet.
“That was interesting,” Ernest said. “I don’t think I’m going back for another one.”
Hoping to go to college to be a heart surgeon, Ernest is also planning to be a three-sport athlete at Connelly – she’s considering swimming in the spring – and she does it all with a bright but sometimes guarded smile. Because of her background in India, she views sports as a bonus.
“Coming to Connelly was a big thing. Making the tennis team was a big thing,” Ernest said. “I didn’t even expect to get on the basketball team.”
