The first thing that captures your attention is the stratospheric scoring average.
Bay'lee Purdy's output of 33.6 points per game absolutely beckons a double-take. Thirty-three point six? Seriously?
That figure has her ranked No. 7 nationally on the MaxPreps leaderboards.
Bay'lee Purdy averages 33.6 points inColorado's smallest classification.
Photo courtesy of Bay
She must have been on some intense offseason regimen, right? Or perhaps she grew several inches during the summer and is too tall for the other girls in the state's smallest classification, eh? Nope and nope.
"I understand that people think that 5A is different than 1A," the
Deer Trail (Colo.) senior said. "But in a lot of ways, it's quite the same. Playing summer basketball made me realize that, because I went against the best."
Deer Trail is a tiny school located more than an hour east of Denver, a miniscule community along the Interstate 70 corridor. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it town where the land appears more indigenous to Kansas or Nebraska than to Purdy's home state. The Eagles' enrollment is so small that their football team competes in the 6-man division.
None of that has helped her gain attention.
Her glitzy numbers often have been dismissed because she plays in the 1A classification against schools from similar towns that only a handful of city people have ever heard of. Others simply have not seen or heard of her, since Deer Trail seldom plays in the Denver metro area, the hotbed for Division I signees.
But scrutinize closer and it's easy to see that the gaudy output is nothing new for the 5-foot-8 guard. She averaged 30.2 points last season, 27.6 as a sophomore and even contributed 15.6 as a freshman.
Well, someone has noticed. Purdy is set to play at Northern Colorado next season, a Division I program in the Big Sky Conference. Her coach, Aaron Dille, firmly believes his player is legit and not a product of playing against schools that oftentimes have fewer than 25 students in a graduating class.
"The first thing I'd point out is that she signed a full ride to UNC, so that's a pretty good indication of how good the experts think she is," Dille said. "The second thing is, there's not as big a drop off in level of play (at 1A) as some people think. We beat a 3A team earlier this season by more than 20 points.
"Your average to lower-level 5A, 4A or 3A team would really kill a lower-level 1A or 2A team, I get that. But your upper-level teams, I mean, we wouldn't beat a good 5A team, but we could hang with them."
Purdy was selected to play in The Show last season, an all-star game with the closest ties to the high school scene (she figures to be a shoo-in for a return trip this season). The game is played on the Pepsi Center floor prior to a Denver Nuggets game, and serves as a validation from the media that a player is among the Top 20 in the state.
In recent years, the game has featured players such as Melissa Jones (just completed a four-year stint at Baylor; starter the past two seasons), Jaclyn Thoman (four-year starting point guard at Boston College) and Carlie Needles (freshman at Florida this season), among several other major Division I players.
"Bay'lee could play with anybody," Dille said. "She'd be a starting guard on any team anywhere in the state. It's the same basket, same height, same length of court."
Purdy was essentially known as a jump-shot artist and one who could beat the pack in transition during her first three seasons. She has added slasher to her repertoire this season, allowing her to draw contact as she attacks the basket.
"One thing that has helped me score a lot of points, definitely, is getting to the free-throw line," she said. "I've had a lot of games where that's where I get most of my points. I've added that to my game, driving a lot more instead of living outside on the 3-point line."
Bay'lee Purdy, Deer Trail
Photo courtesy of Bay
Purdy is confident she can play among the elite because she has done it. She spends her summers competing for the Colorado Flight club team, which isn't the state's most noteworthy but one that competes against top-notch out-of-state competition.
Her summer teammates include sharpshooters Madalyn Neely (D'Evelyn) and Amanda Weber (Cheyenne Mountain), speedy guard Khadijah Sayyid (Peak to Peak) and Legacy starting forward Cailtlin Smith.
Garnering attention from colleges was helped by the success of Purdy's sister, Tae'lor, who averaged 28.3 points at Deer Trail during Bay'lee's freshman year. Tae'lor has transitioned well to the next level at Division II Regis University. She was the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's freshman of the year in 2009-2010, and after redshirting last season, averages a team-best 15.8 points a game this season.
Bay'lee was already on the local college map and the offers began to roll in.
"I didn't actually hear from UNC until maybe August," she said. "I had offers from Division II colleges like Fort Lewis and Adams State, Regis, of course, and I actually went on a visit to DU (the University of Denver). But I wasn't the first girl they wanted to recruit. I was probably like their third one.
"They were waiting for some girls to decide, but then I got the call from UNC, who said one of their girls backed out and that they were going to offer me a scholarship."
Purdy signed in November during the early signing period, so it's official. All that's left is trying to capture a high school title for her fourth-ranked Eagles, whose only loss was a 45-42 decision against Burlington on Jan. 14 in which Purdy was held to a season-low 19 points.
She has scored at least 40 points three times this season, including 44 in a 74-59 win against Flagler. Dille makes the case that Purdy might in fact flourish more if she were at a larger program.
"They're triple-teaming her," Dille said. "You couldn't do that at a 5A school because you'd have four girls out there who are pretty good, too. So in many ways it's even harder being out here."
If so, Purdy hasn't made it look that way.
