Holmes finds small town charm

When Kendall Holmes was growing up there was a lot of time at the gym shooting with her father. The fruits of all those hours are now showing up regularly at South Dakota women’s basketball games.

The 5-foot-10 junior from the Chicago area leads the team in long-range shooting with 55 3-pointers for the Coyotes, who face St. Thomas at the Sanford Coyote Sports Center on Saturday night.

Rebounding is really necessary in basketball. So is passing. So is defense. To listen to a lot of old-schoolers who remain figureheads in the game, scoring points and launching 3s is a necessary evil not to be spoken of in public.

Teams still need them to win, though. For that, the sport of basketball – and the Coyotes in particular – look for support from players like Holmes, who look for opportunities from the outside because that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.

“I’ve always been a shooter,” said Holmes, who transferred to USD after three years at DePaul. “With my dad we’d shoot from the outside, shoot from the inside – shoot from all over the place. But yes, I love to shoot the 3s. I always have.”

Within the format of the team, it’s a valuable role. Her 55-for-152 effort from the arc translates to a 36% success rate and has provided the Coyotes a strong threat from the outside. When you have to cover someone out there, it can often lead to opportunities at other spots on the floor for other players.

“The best thing about Kendall is that you never have to beg her to shoot,” USD assistant coach Gabby Johnson said. “She gets it. She has been playing basketball long enough to know that just because you miss a couple doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to go all game. She always has confidence that the next one is going in. That’s something that has really helped us throughout the season.”

Holmes grew up in Plainfield, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and went to high school at Benet Academy, a perennial girls basketball powerhouse that included eight Division I players on the roster during her time at the school.

Her senior year she averaged 14.5 points a game, earned accolades from all over and decided on DePaul, a Chicago school and a member of the Big East Conference. Three seasons later she had earned a starting spot and averaged 9.5 points a game.

Anyone who has been to Chicago will tell you it’s not like South Dakota. If you’re looking for something completely different, though, Vermillion is going to get it done for you.

“I’m very close with my family so I loved being able to go home and see them when we had off days,” Holmes said. “I could go home and relax and unwind and hang out with them. That part of the transition to USD was a little tough because I wasn’t able to see them every week. But I was looking at this as a great opportunity to experience something new with different people. And I’ve been having a great time doing that.”

Adjusting to a new program and a much different community has been smooth for Holmes, who is a general studies major and wants to pursue – after several more years of education – a career as a physician assistant. This is the first time she has ever lived in a small town for any length of time.

“Here it’s more about spending time with your teammates,” she said. “I feel like the friendships you make are a lot stronger because when you’re not playing basketball you’re still hanging out with them. Whether that’s watching movies or painting pumpkins, it’s a different kind of fun.”

Having a cheerful disposition can help in these kinds of situations, of course.

“Kendall is a really happy player,” Johnson said. “She’s very smiley on the court. If you watch her you can tell she is really enjoying what she is doing. That’s exciting for us because she is bringing a good energy to the team. At the same time, she is a real competitor. There are times this year when we’ve really needed a bucket and she’ll get one and you’re thinking ‘That’s what we needed right there.’”

Competing at a high level has been a part of her basketball life going back to high school where she was surrounded by teammates who, like her, spent a lot of time trying to get better at the game.

“We had a coach who did a great job of navigating having a lot of good players on the same team,” Holmes said. “It was fun to be part of that kind of environment because every day we all made each other better. I probably wouldn’t be playing Division I basketball without playing against those girls every day in high school.”

One of the lessons she has taken with her to USD is about staying confident. A tough stretch isn’t going send her into a funk that a couple nice shots can’t fix.

“I remind myself that I’ve put the work in and I have to trust my shot,” Holmes said. “If I miss a couple here or there I just need to see the ball go through the hoop, whether that’s by driving to the basket or taking some kind of shot that is not a 3. I’ll see the ball go through the net and then I’ll start working my way back out there.”