Rutgers' talented freshmen are ready to let their talent sing

Rutgers freshman April Sykes was named Big East preseason Freshman of the Year. Icon SMI Nina Mandell's Mailbag Have questions or feedback? E-mail Nina Mandell. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

It started at a bus stop in early October. Rutgers freshman Chelsey Lee was belting out a tune and one by one her freshmen teammates followed. A fellow passenger, seemingly uninterested in hearing Rutgers' latest hot shots sing, leaned out the window and yelled, "SHUT UP." Unfortunately for him, the quintet just grew louder, and since that day the youngest Rutgers stars have done nothing but sing on the bus, whether on their way to practice or class, much to the entertainment (and sometimes chagrin) of the other passengers.

Their favorite songs include the Temptations' My Girl and Boyz II Men's Til the End of the Road, but Brooklyn Pope, a highly-touted freshman from Texas, said the sessions, which are now recorded on one of the players' laptops, can range anywhere "from new school to old school."

"Basically we sit in the front of the bus and sing right beside [the other passengers]," Pope said. "They'd be laughing, but they don't know who we are yet."

Yet is the operative word for a class that ranked third in the nation by hoopgurlz.com -- closely behind Tennessee and UConn.

The group is led by April Sykes, the most celebrated recruit of the freshmen. A 5-11 wing from Starkville, Miss., Sykes comes from a long line of standout athletes and Mississippi State loyalists: her aunt played basketball there and most of her family graduated from the university. Growing up with three brothers and a sister, Sykes spent most of her childhood playing football and basketball with her siblings and the neighborhood kids, never letting the basketball out of her sight. "She would take that ball and she would bounce that ball all through her legs, all around her legs and she was a small kid then," recalled her grandmother, Anita Jackson. "At night, when everything is quiet and I'd hear that ball, boom, boom and [knew] there's April coming to my house."

Sykes spent most of her childhood at her grandmother's house or at her mother's down the street. But unlike many of the other kids from the neighborhood, she was traveling around the country at a young age with her AAU team.

A standout athlete by the time she entered high school, Sykes said she was so good at football, coaches at East Oktibbeha High wanted her to play quarterback. "My grandmother wouldn't let me," Sykes said, laughing. "She said their offensive line was too sad."

Focusing on basketball, Sykes was named first-team all-state for three straight years and led the Mississippi High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) in scoring her last two seasons. Known as a versatile all-around shooter, passer and defender, Sykes began receiving recruiting mail by her freshman year and by the time she was a junior, her grandmother was sure she was headed to LSU. But Sykes had other ideas.

"I liked all the schools, but just one school had to stand out and it was Rutgers," Sykes said.

Like most of the other coaches who called Sykes' home, Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer had to give a firm promise to Jackson that her granddaughter would be looked after at Rutgers. "I used to tell her all the time, Coach Stringer, I know you ... I'm going to trust you with her, but you have to promise her that you're going to take care of her," Jackson said. "She said, Grandma I wouldn't do anything but take care of her, I promise."

Now, Stringer calls Jackson almost as much as Sykes does. "They talk all of the time," Sykes said. "I guess about me. She doesn't ever tell me about what."

Sykes is joined by four other McDonald's All-Americans: Pope, a 6-2 guard from Texas, who led Dunbar High to three state championships; Lee, a 6-2 forward from Miami; Nikki Speed, a 5-8 guard who played on the gold-medal winning US U-18 national team this summer; and Jasmine Dixon, a 5-11 guard who helped lead Long Beach Poly Prep to three straight California Division I State titles.

"What's good about this team is we have depth for a change," said Stringer. "When we went into the NCAA's [last season], we went in with eight players. Hopefully we can be healthy because I've never seen anything like [the rash of injuries last season]."

While Stringer admits she badly needs her freshmen to step up, when asked how the youngsters are adjusting, she was careful with her praise. "[Sykes'] coming along, she's going to be OK," Stringer said. "There's a lot of things she has to learn and she's working. I'm not interested in her believing anything other than she's got to earn her time on the floor."

The freshmen have had trouble adjusting to the conditioning and strength of the college game. "In high school we didn't have a weight room," said Sykes. "I think I have muscles now."

As she's adjusted from leaving the South -- the heavily Southern-accented Sykes said she even found a restaurant nearby the Piscataway, N.J., campus that makes decent Southern-style food -- Sykes and her freshmen teammates are ready to prove they can do more than sing on the bus.

"People will all know who we are then," Pope said. "And then they'll be asking us all kind of questions about our game."