Katie Lou Samuelson is in Nashville, Tenn., this weekend to root on her sisters and Stanford players Bonnie and Karlie in the Final Four.
Three teams in the Final Four – Stanford, Connecticut and Notre Dame – are among the five schools the younger Samuelson lists as finalists for where she will attend. The others include UCLA and Kentucky, which reached the Sweet 16.
A plethora of options, none too shabby.
Those opportunities are coming to Samuelson, a junior, because of seasons like this one, when she set Mater Dei’s single-season individual scoring record by averaging 26.3 points per game. Her slash-line of shooting percentages – 62 percent from the field, 54 percent from 3-point range and 89.4 percent from the free-throw line – is impressive at any level, and she led Mater Dei to a 25-3 record and Trinity League title.
Samuelson, who was awarded the Gatorade State Player of the Year Award, is the Register’s Player of the Year for the second season in a row.
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Her pinpoint shooting ability comes in part from her ability to get a shot off quickly. Her rapid release is something she has perfected through work with her father, Jon, over the years.
Samuelson said she tries to get at least 250 shots up on off days. She and her father work on catching and shooting off of screens, setting her up for situations in which she can take advantage of an open look in the split second before a defender closes on her.
“Once we got the consistency down we worked on a lot of quick-release stuff,” Jon Samuelson said.
Of the three sisters, Jon said Katie Lou might have the quickest release. And at 6-foot-3, she is also the tallest.
Samuelson pulled down 9.8 rebounds per game to go with her high-volume scoring.
About the only thing she and the Monarchs didn’t do was win a championship. Mater Dei fell in the CIF-SS Open Division championship to Windward of Los Angeles and lost to Long Beach Poly in the state playoffs. Samuelson injured her elbow in the Windward loss, to add to the frustration.
Those losses serve as fuel for Samuelson going into her senior year.
“We started off the season great and then just we flattened out a little bit,” she said. “We just know that next year we’re going to be a different team.”
In the meantime, Samuelson will be doing plenty of traveling, starting with the trip to Nashville. She will begin taking official visits this spring and has already scheduled a trip to UConn. She took unofficial visits to four of her five finalists and has yet to see Kentucky.
Samuelson said she is trying to make her decision without basing it on her sibling connection at Stanford.
“I’m approaching it as, this school, is it going to be the best school for me?” she said.
Last summer, she played in Mexico with the USA Basketball women’s under-16 national team. She will try out again this year and if she makes the team, will go to Slovakia. She will also try to participate in the FIBA 3-on-3 under-18 World Championships, which take place in China this year.
It will leave little room for an offseason. But Samuelson hopes to make improvements in her game for next season and beyond when she can.
She is working twice a week with Rick Hagedorn, a speed and sports performance coach based out of Brea.
Her goal: to enter 2014-15 stronger than ever.
“That’s what I’m focusing on,” Samuelson said. “Getting stronger and quicker, and being able to take more contact.”
Contact the writer: mcooper@ocregister.com
