Although she played for different coaches during more headier times surrounding this program, she feels a responsibility to return.
“Loyal to the soil,” she called it.
“Louisville is my hometown, but this…” she said tapping her chest, “this is my heart.”
Playing here from 2014-18 — 121 games in all — she was part of three NCAA Tournament teams and her name is chiseled in the record books as one of the Flyers greatest rebounders of all time.
Although just 5-foot-10, she played inside and ended up as the most prolific rebounder in a single season — 387 boards — in program history.
Coming into Sunday’s game, she had three of the top eight rebounding games of all time — 24 against LaSalle, 22 against Harvard, 21 versus Saint Louis — and she’s seventh on the all-time list of career rebounders with 831.
She came to the locker room Sunday because she wanted to embrace Arianna Smith into rebounding royalty at UD.
The 6-foot-2 junior had grabbed 21 rebounds against Ohio Dominican, while also scoring 13 points. Earlier this season she had 19 boards against Wichita State. She’s had double-digit rebounds in seven of the 10 games she’s played this season and is averaging 12.3 a game.
Layfield pulled her aside to congratulate her and encourage her to keep up the board work and afterward Smith was appreciative.
“She’s definitely a mentor of mine,” Smith said. “She was one of the best rebounders here and she stressed how what I do helps the team.”
And the two have more in common than just an uncanny ability to corral a carom.
When Smith transferred here last season after a notable freshman year at Indiana State, she was coming off a massive knee surgery.
Coming out of Ballard High School in Louisville, Layfield missed much of her sophomore and junior seasons following a pair of major knee surgeries. Those injuries cost her scholarship offers. Some programs thought she wouldn’t be the same player again, especially since she already was undersized as an inside player.
Her answer to that can be found on her middle finger, where she has tattooed “I Can.”
Smith has now embraced the same attitude and four games into this season — against SIUE on Nov. 20 — she moved into the starting lineup and has remained there. She had a double-double the day she debuted (11 points, 11 rebounds) and has had three in the six games she’s played since.
“I love her tenacity and just how she gets after it,” Layfield said. “She has a knack for the ball. She doesn’t give up. That’s something you don’t teach. It’s just in you or it’s not and I believe she thinks every ball is hers.”
UD needed the efforts of Smith and guard Nayo Lear in the first half Sunday — Smith had 11 rebounds; Lear scored 12 of what would be her team-high 16 points — because, for the most part, the Flyers were sleepwalking against the Division II Panthers.
Ohio Dominican, which came in with a 3-6 record, led 38-36 at the half.
“We came into the game acting like it was a walk in the park,” Smith admitted.
That changed at halftime when she said coach Tamika Williams-Jeter “got on our (butts).”
“I didn’t get close to the board, so nothing broke,” Williams-Jeter said with a laugh.
The Flyers asserted themselves in the second half and overpowered the Panthers. who have just one player over 5-11. The Flyers have eight.
No one has stood taller this season ― whether it’s been against Ohio Dominican or a Big Ten school like Purdue — than Smith.
“She’s just a kid who always brings it for us,” Williams-Jeter said. “She plays with a passion.”
The Flyers are now 6-5. Next up comes a Wednesday trip to Vanderbilt and Williams-Jeter said guard Ivy Wolf, the team’s leading scorer at 11.5 points per game, will be back. She missed Sunday’s game and was on the sideline wearing a protective boot for what the coach said was a shin strain.
After the game with the Commodores, the Flyers go on a brief Christmas break.
Smith will return to Columbus, where she said she’ll join her family on Christmas morning to open presents:
“Then we head over to my grandmother’s house for Christmas dinner and my mom also cooks. So, there’s a lot of food that day. I bring a lot of it back here the next day for my teammates. I think they appreciate that.”
Either way —clearing the table for them or clearing the boards — the Flyers appreciate Arianna Smith.
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