Murphy forward Rogers continuing to grow heading into junior year with Lady Bulldogs
Murphy – Torin Rogers still has two years of high school basketball remaining – but that hasn’t stopped college basketball programs from blowing up the junior’s phone with recruiting calls on a daily basis.
The 6’1” junior, who received her 11th collegiate offer Friday – this one from Division I program University of North Carolina at Charlotte – said that she’s been receiving “four or five” calls per day from college coaches looking to add the forward to their programs.
“It’s actually been crazy,” Rogers said of the attention she’s received this summer. “Because I’ve not been able to go meet these college coaches on campus, I’ve been doing a lot of calls – probably four or five a day. My schedule has kind of been crazy, but it’s been nice to build relationships with all of these different schools.”
After a state championship-winning season with the Lady Bulldogs in which she averaged more than 17 points and nine rebounds, Rogers has been making the most of her offseason, despite the ongoing pandemic.
“I’ve just been making the best of what I have,” Rogers said of her offseason. “Working out from home, practicing in the driveway and trying to get as good as I can during this time.”
Rogers said she’s been focused on fine-tuning her ball-handling skills, along with improving her quickness and strength since the break started, having already added around 15 points of muscle in the span.
“The big things for me that I’ve been trying to work on have been strength and quickness. I’ve actually gained about 15 points over the break and that was a big goal of mine, just to gain some muscle weight,” Rogers said of her routine during the break. “And then with basketball, ball-handling has been a main focus of mine. That’s something I have access to no matter where I am, so I’ve been working a lot on my guard skills.”
Back in June, Rogers’ versatility on the basketball court turned heads at the Insider Exposure Jr. All-American Camp in Cordova, Tenn., one of the few camps Rogers was set to attend that hadn’t been canceled or postponed.
“The majority of the camps that I was supposed to go to got canceled or postponed,” Rogers said of the pandemic’s impact on her summer. “So that was the first time that I had been able to go play against other people again. It was a great camp, good competition.”
Rogers, who naturally fits into the high school center spot thanks to her height, projects to slide up to the forward (SF/PF) positions at the collegiate level, a transition that the junior has already started preparing for.
“This summer, I’ve started that transition, working on changing my game from a high school center to a college forward,” Rogers said of looking ahead toward her collegiate positions. “Working on my outside shot, taking people off of the drive, reading my competition.”
Murphy girls basketball coach Ray Gutierrez said that he doesn’t see Rogers having any trouble transitioning positions at the collegiate level.
“She has guard skills and she knows how to be a guard,” Gutierrez said of Rogers. “The coaches that I’ve talked to know that. They’ve seen her in individual settings and understand her basketball skill set.”
Rogers’ versatility on the basketball court, her ability to defend the rim on the defensive end while holding her own when switched out to guards and on the offensive end, scoring from any spot on the floor, is part of what has drawn so much recruiting attention to the talented junior.
“I mean, it’s obvious that she’s special,” Gutierrez said of Rogers’ versatility. “Very few times in our conference do you have a kid come through that has been offered multiple Division I scholarships by her junior year. There’s no doubt talent-wise that she’s special, and I have no doubt that she’s going to continue to get better.”
With the majority of the core of the Lady Bulldogs’ state championship-winning team set to return this season, Rogers said she is expecting to see playing time at various positions for Murphy, and planning for those situations accordingly.
“I think that I’ll be put in a lot of different positions this season so that’s definitely something I’ve been working on,” Rogers said. “My goal is to be ready for wherever coach wants to play me.”