#SideBySide Stories: Part Three

The clock had just struck six minutes in the third quarter in Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina. Arkansas trailed the No. 1 Seeded South Carolina Gamecocks 50-37, but had come out of the break down by 19 points. Amber Ramirez inbounded the ball to Kiara Williams, who immediately handed the ball back to her. Then, Ramirez let it fly from just inside the half-court line, drilling her fifth three of the game. She strutted her normal confident strut back the other way, the Gamecock lead now cut to 10.

The Hogs would lose the game, but that moment carried significant historical weight: Ramirez had broken Wendi Willits’ single-season program record for threes made. And she did it from 35 feet from the hoop. Willits, known as the best shooter in the history of Arkansas Women’s Basketball, and one of the best shooters of her era, had held that record since 1999.

“I mean, for Amber, it was a great accomplishment,” Amber Shirey, Ladyback legend and the team’s current Director of Operations, said. “That record had stood for over 20 years. Nowadays, you don’t see records stand for that long, especially because our game has become so offensive-minded. For Wendi, it’s pretty crazy it stood the test of time.  For Amber, I think it is a tremendous honor to have broken it.”

***

Nearly 40 years earlier, a two-year old Wendi Willits was outside. She was throwing a basketball at a hoop, and in a somewhat unthinkable moment for those that watched her play during her collegiate and professional careers, she was missing the basket.

“Yeah, I started shooting toward a regular hoop when I was two, but I wasn’t making it in,” Willits recalled. “That’s the first time my parents took pictures of me playing.”

Not long after that though, Wendi, who was from a small town and a daughter born into a blue-collar family, started to garner attention. Even if that attention really didn’t register in the family at first.

“For me, the first time it even crossed my mind that this basketball thing could be something for me was when I had my first college coach say something to my dad in sixth grade,” Willits said. “He told him that I had the ‘ability to go big time.’ We were all like ‘what’s he talking about?’”

That didn’t stop Wendi from getting to work, though. The combination of workouts with her father and video tapes he had bought her about form shooting proved fruitful, as Willits became lethal with the ball in her hands.

Once in high school, Willits’ ability could no longer be denied. For her first two years, she played six-on-six basketball. Her final two years in high school were spent playing five-on-five. It didn’t really matter the number of people on the court, though – Willits was going to score the ball regardless.

During her high school career, Willits averaged just a hair over 30 points per game, even despite injuring her knee during her sophomore season.

“My high school career was unique, because of the switch between six-on-six and five-on-five,” Willits said. “That’s actually why I don’t qualify for any of the state scoring titles.”

Scoring titles or not, Willits had caught the attention of several major collegiate programs. She had narrowed down her list to five schools, and officially visited all five: Texas, Oklahoma, Stephen F. Austin, Baylor, and Arkansas.

“Coming out of high school, Wendi was a great scorer,” Shirey said. “She came from a small school in a small town, and she was just a good, hardworking kid from a good hardworking family. So putting in the hard work was in her nature. She was a little bit shy, but she was really fun to recruit. She reminded me of myself a little bit, in the fact that we grew in small towns and were going to play for big schools. But, no matter what she says, she was a better shooter than I ever was.”

***

472 miles south of Fort Cobb, Oklahoma is San Antonio, Texas. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, there was a player there that began to take the local games by storm a lot like Willits did: she could shoot the heck out of the ball.

“I mean being me, I have never been the fastest or most athletic person,” Amber Ramirez said. “I knew that I had to stick out in a different way, and that way was shooting. I don’t know if I was good back when I was really young, because I was small, but since I can really remember, basketball has always been my thing.”

And she developed that skill through hours and hours of work. And she an attitude to match.

“After she figured out basketball was what she wanted to do, Amber and her dad started working out everyday after school,” Melissa Ramirez, Amber’s mom, said. “He would come up every single day and they would use the gym, that didn’t have any AC, at school every afternoon. And Amber never complained. Never. That’s when we were just like ‘Wow’. What third grader does that?”

Unlike Willits, though, Ramirez was discovered in a big way early on. As early as eighth grade, the marksman was getting offers from multiple schools, including her hometown school, the University of Texas at San Antonio. And as her high school career started, the offers kept rolling in.

During her freshman season, Ramirez got off to a slow start, getting used to not being the featured player during the regular season. But then, the playoffs started and the bright lights changed everything for her.

“During the playoffs, the crowds were bigger,” Amy Ramirez, Amber’s sister, said. “The competition was better. There was more on the line. That’s what Amber lives for.  She’s built for that environment.”

“In those playoffs during my freshman season, that’s when I really made my mark,” Ramirez said. “I carried the team. I felt like I was really hitting my stride.”

And from there, Ramirez really didn’t look back, even despite suffering a serious injury, just like Willits did, during her sophomore season. Ramirez scored 999 points during her junior season, and earned her way into the McDonald’s All-American Game and the Jordan Brand Classic while being dubbed a consensus five-star recruit. As the accolades poured in, so did the college offers. And so did the craze surrounding her rise.

“When you are the parent of a player, you hear of things like the McDonald’s All-American Game, but we always thought that those were for other people, not for us,” Melissa Ramirez said. “Then, things just started falling in place. Her freshman year, she tried out for Team USA, and didn’t make it, but that was still so eye opening. We didn’t’ know a lot about it until it started happening. You sit back and look at it now, and it’s still crazy to think about.”

***

Arkansas Women’s Basketball was actually late to the party in terms of recruiting Willits out of Fort Cobb. They caught her the summer after her junior year, and convinced her to come on an official visit. Her fit there was perfect, which she learned during her time in Fayetteville. And just like that, Willits committed to Arkansas.

However, there wasn’t much time for celebration upon her arrival. That team, the 1998 team, was filled with tons of talent. There was competition at every spot.

“Being a freshman on the 1998 team, it was pretty stressful honestly,” Willits said. “Playing time was so up and down. In my very first game, I broke two school records – in the second, I don’t even get in the game.”

The adjustment isn’t easy for everyone, but Shirey, who was one of the assistants on the ’98 team, says Willits handled it as well as one could. And it made her better.

“We had a lot of good players on that team,” Shirey recalled. “Christy Smith. Karen Jones. I could go on and on. It was a very competitive team. She had to really work because there was so much competition on that team. There was someone good at every spot. That made her better, though. A lot of times, that can be hard for a kid coming out of high school where they are the star. She handled it really well.”

The competition on that team turned out to be a good thing for everyone, as the 1998 team made the program’s only run to the Final Four. Freshman Wendi Willits played in 35 games that season, including five starts. She averaged 6.8 points per game in 18.8 minutes played, shooting the ball at a 35.6 percent clip from deep. But it was the run itself that helped Willits take her next step at the U of A.

“Trying to find where you fit in, that adjustment from high school to college ball was a challenge,” Willits said. “I had to change my game. In high school, I wasn’t really just a three-point shooter. I could shoot the ball, but I liked to attack. Now my coaches are telling me ‘Hey go spot up, and don’t move’. Just being on that team and making that run to the Final Four, it was exciting. But looking back it was such a roller coaster. It helped me grow.”

And grow she did. The very next year, during her sophomore season, Willits dominated, putting together perhaps her best collegiate season as a second-year college player. Willits averaged a career-high 14.2 points per game that season, but also shattered the single-season three-pointers made record, drilling 104 of them during the 1998-99 season.

Willits had many great games during her career, but her legendary game against national powerhouse Georgia on the road stands out above the rest as her favorite collegiate game ever. That single-game record remains intact to this day.

“At Georgia, when I hit nine threes, that was pretty cool,” Willits said. “It wasn’t against some bad team that I did that. They were really, really good. They were loaded, so to have a game like that against them was really exciting for me.”

The Hogs once again made a run during the 1999 postseason, but this time it was in the WNIT, which Arkansas was able to host in Bud Walton Arena. En route to the Championship game, Willits and the Hogs knocked off Northwestern State, Oklahoma, Rice and Drake.

During the championship game, which was also held in Bud Walton Arena, Willits and the Hogs played in front of the largest crowd in program history: 14,163 people.

“I remember how much fun that was, winning the WNIT at home,” Willits said. “Having that crowd in there, that was crazy. I still talk to my teammates about it.”

***

It had come time for the five-star guard out of San Antonio to choose her next stop. Ramirez narrowed it down to three potential landing spots: Texas Tech, TCU and Washington.

“I really narrowed my choices down to three places – Washington, Texas Tech and TCU,” Ramirez said. “Texas Tech was up there, because my AAU Coach took the job there, and I still wanted to play for that coach. They had a good chance. Washington, I felt like was a really good fit for me, but it was just too far for me to go. TCU, that was the one I chose. It was close to home for me.”

Ramirez would play at TCU for two seasons, averaging 9.6 points per game on 38.2 percent shooting from deep. The San Antonio product really started to come into her own during her sophomore season, bumping up her scoring average from 8.3 to 10.4. Her three-point percentage also jumped up from 36.8 to 39.2, while her assists, steals, field goal percentage and minutes all jumped. On several occasions, Ramirez showed her ability to take the game over, including a 33-point eruption against Southeastern Louisiana, a game in which she hit 11 threes, which broke the Big 12’s single game record.

But, despite her production early in year two in Fort Worth, Ramirez’s minutes declined during the second half of the season. She played more than 25 minutes just twice during the final 10 games of the season.

“I will never forget, one coach on that staff called me a ‘moment player’,” Ramirez said. “In that system they just wanted me to stand in the corner and shoot. I know I can be good as a spot up shooter, but I felt like I was pretty good in the other parts of the game, too. A lot of people thought I was just a spot up shooter, and I do want to be the best shooter ever. But I want to be the best overall player I can be, too.”

Before her sophomore season got underway, however, a familiar face had moved a lot closer to home, as Mike Neighbors returned to Arkansas to take the head coaching job at his alma mater, leaving far away Washington to lead the Hogs. So, after her sophomore season, Ramirez made the decision. She was going to transfer to the University of Arkansas.

“Looking back on that, Arkansas was absolutely the right choice for Amber,” Amy Ramirez said. “Coach Neighbors and Amber have always had that special bond. It’s what was right for her.”

After sitting out the 2018-19 season due to transfer rules, Ramirez was primed and ready to play for the Hogs during the 2019-20 season, earning a starting spot over the summer in Neighbors’ up-tempo and free-flowing offensive system. What happened next, not even her biggest fans could have predicted.

“I mean if I am honest with you, I didn’t think she was going to break any records this season,” Melissa Ramirez said, laughing. “But, what I know, what I have always known, is Amber is capable of shooting the basketball. She can do that every night. And if she gets going, watch out.”

Ramirez was a flamethrower during her inaugural season on the Hill, starting all 32 games for Neighbors’ Razorbacks during the 2019-20 season. The knockdown shooter had several moments of brilliance during her first season in Fayetteville, including a 29-point performance vs. Tennessee at home. The redshirt junior hit five or more threes nine times during the season, including two games in which she hit seven of them.

When it was all said and done, Ramirez’s numbers from beyond the arc were among the nation’s elite: she finished second in the NCAA in three-pointers made (106) and ninth in the NCAA in three-point percentage (44.7). Ramirez was also tops in both categories in the SEC, while also finishing 11^th in scoring in the league. She, along with fellow “Splash Sister” Alexis Tolefree, helped guide Arkansas to a new SEC record in three-pointers made, as the team hit 314 during the 2019-20 season.

More importantly than anything though, Ramirez helped Arkansas reach 10 SEC wins for just the second time in program history.

“The numbers are nice, but I think I always knew I could do that,” Ramirez said. “Winning is what I really want to do. And last year we started doing that.”

***

By the time her collegiate career was done, Wendi Willits had etched her name all over the Arkansas record book. And, as it turns out, many of those records have stood the test of time. Currently, Willits is seventh on Arkansas’ all-time scoring list, having scored 1,574 points over her four-year career. Willits also still has a commanding grip on the program’s all-time three pointers made record, as she made 316 of them during her career. The next closest Razorback, Lyndsay Harris, had 283 of them.

So, when Ramirez broke her single-season record in early March of 2020, it seemed like it should have surprised Willits. However, with the way Neighbors has his Hogs playing, she was not surprised at all.

“His system, it excites you as a shooter,” Willits said. “You know, having never played in a system like that, I really think it’s hard to compare Amber and I. All I know is, with as many threes as they shoot, they are going to make more threes. And it’s really great for the game – it’s really exciting. I am so excited for her.”

Though they played in different eras for different coaches, Shirey actually sees some similarities between the two players.

“The more I think about it, they are quite similar,” Shirey said. “Their games are similar. But more importantly, both of them spend a lot of time in the gym.”

When both players were asked about how they developed their other-worldly shooting ability, they echoed that sentiment exactly: repetition, and more repetition, was the key to becoming a marksman.

“It just takes so many reps,” Ramirez said. “And it’s not just getting up shots – you have to make shots.  And then once you make them, you have to change the situation. You have to make them off screens, off the dribble, off the break. Right now, I am working on my step backs. You have to be great consistently to be truly great.”

“You have to be so detail-oriented,” Willits said. “I mean when I was little, my dad bought me these form shooting videos and I watched them over and over again, trying to get my form perfect. But then, once you get the form down, you have to adjust to the speed of the game. How fast can you get it off with perfect form? How fast can you turn your body toward the goal coming off a screen? You have to work so much on the fundamentals.”

However, in terms of form, the players are actually different. Both players started shooting the ball with two hands. However, Willits opted to change her form at an early age, per her father’s instructions and form shooting videos. Ramirez, though, refused to change how she shot the ball, despite repeated attempts by her coaches to change her form.

“My husband would always just say ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’” Melissa Ramirez said. “It is what has always worked for her, and she seems to be doing alright with it. Once people started to realize that, they started to leave her alone about it.”

“People were always trying to change it” Ramirez said. “My AAU coaches, my high school coach. But I remember when I first came to Arkansas, Coach Neighbors said just what my dad would say: ‘why fix it if it works?’ I mean honestly when I shoot it, it doesn’t feel like I am shooting with both hands. But then I go back and look at pictures, and I am like ‘dang’. Because I really do shoot it different.”

Shirey also noted the way they score during the flow of the game is slightly different.

“When Wendi was playing, you just knew she was going to give you the same thing every game,” Shirey said. “With Amber though, if she gets hot, she can just string them together. They are both great shooters, though. There’s no doubt about that.”

More important to shooters than anything though? The duo pointed to a need for confidence.

“It’s so important,” Ramirez said. “Especially to me. You can see in my time here at Arkansas that I am playing confident, and what it has done for me. A perfect example is the SEC Tournament. I wasn’t hitting anything at the start of that tournament. Most coaches would have told me to stop shooting. But this staff knows, just like I know, that I have put in way too much work to stop firing. I have made way too many shots to let a few misses get me down.”

And Arkansas immediately reaped the benefits of giving Ramirez that confidence. And, at the very SEC Tournament where she struggled early, she broke through and rewrote the record book. And Willits, who knows a thing or two about three-point shooting records, thinks she could do it again.

“I am so excited for her,” Willits repeated. “I think, maybe, she could break her own record this season.”

Unsurprisingly, the confident Ramirez agreed with sentiment. But she also wants so much more during her collegiate curtain call.

“I mean breaking (Willits’) record was big for me, and of course I want to break that again,” Ramirez said. “But I want more. I want the SEC Record. I want to lead the country in made threes. I want the single-game record, too.”

“But you know me. What I really want is to win the SEC.”