MOUNTAIN VIEW, Mo. — To put it bluntly: Piper Francis used to not be very good.
Not, you know, recently… more like when she was a child, when most people aren’t very good at basketball.
But she could never be sold on that. She knew she wasn’t a finished product, but always felt she was good enough to belong on the court. One of her defining moments came when she was cut from an AAU team at age seven.
Yes, seven years old.
“I knew I was better than that and I just… I had to do it,” she said.
Francis is a textbook gym rat. Morning, noon, night, game days, weekends… whenever the sophomore has spare time, she works on her shot.
“She wants to be the best on the floor, not just at Liberty but whoever (she) is playing against,” MV-BT/Liberty principal and family friend John Daniels said.
She’s off to a good start, becoming one of the fastest girls in Missouri history to reach one thousand career points, doing so in just 44 games. On the night she set that mark, a win over Alton on Jan. 21, she got the game-winning layup to erase a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
It was a career-high 38 point performance, and she could hardly handle the news afterward, flashing a sheepish smile and laugh.
She followed that with a string of more 30-point efforts, including 33 in a 79-75 overtime win over Willow Springs on Thursday.
It’s little surprise to those who got to know her game last year.
“(As a freshman) she picked up right where she left off in junior high and I think took a lot of teams by surprise.”
If “surprise” means setting MV-BT/Liberty’s single-season scoring (560) and three-point (53) records in your first year of varsity, then yes, unexpected. It ended with the most wins in program history (19) and led to all-district and all-conference campaign honors for the 5’8” guard.
That was less of a surprise for her dad, Tony, a former standout shooter with he Eagles who has spent hours upon hours grooming his daughter’s skill set.
“I’ve had a ball in my hand since I was three,” said Francis. “Basketball has always been my sport.”
Averaging just over 26 points per night is boosted by the fact that Francis contributed to a state final four run in volleyball, leading the Eagles in blocks and garnering an All-State Honorable Mention. Thanks to her regimen, she didn’t have much rust to knock off after a long fall.
“She’s handling the pressure well as a sophomore trying to figure out the game,” Daniels said. “Different teams are throwing different defenses at her and you’re going to have to try to figure out how to get yourself open and get your teammates open.”
Now the wins are coming, and that’s what matters most to Francis. After being upset in the first round of districts last year, she wants to let herself lose on the playoff scene.
So, if you need to reach her, she’s probably in the gym as we speak.
“Every morning, every day, every single time I can.”
