11/25/2008 - Michael Tomko, GoDuke.com

DURHAM, N.C. – Playing in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Cameron Indoor Stadium can take a minute to get used to after coming from a small Missouri town playing basketball in front of small local crowds.

But if freshman Kathleen Scheer needed an adjustment period to the college game it hasn’t shown on the basketball court. In her first action in a regular season game during Duke’s 98-31 win over the Maine Black Bears on Nov. 16, Scheer entered the game with 5:49 left in the first half to record her first official minutes of her college basketball career.

The New Haven, Mo., native ended up playing 15 minutes in Duke’s second game of the year, after sitting out versus Oklahoma State, to score nine points on 4-of-9 shooting, including 1-for-2 from three, grab seven rebounds, dish out two assists, force two steals and block one shot.

“Joy [Cheek] talked about us adjusting here,” Scheer said. “It is just way different than high school. You are coming from being the best player on your team or some of us the best player in our state to being on a team where everyone has been that player.”

Cheek has been pleased with how Scheer and the other two freshmen have been willing to learn since they arrived on campus only a few short months ago.

“I think their willingness to follow at times [has benefited their adjustment],” Cheek said. “I think they are all interested in knowing what they need to do to get better and understanding what we are doing in practice.”

“I think that is really great for freshmen because you come from a program where you dominated and now you’re the younger women out there,” Cheek added. “I think it is good they are taking in what we are trying to show them.”

Going over Scheer’s high school accomplishments, it is safe to say that she dominated on the court most of her high school basketball career.

As a senior she was named the Gatorade State Player of the Year, was a four-time all-conference selection, three-time all-state selection and a three-time Missourian all-area player of the year.

Her career numbers are astounding; she scored 2,432 points (22.7 ppg.),  grabbed 1,407 rebounds (13.1 rpg.) and registered 643 blocks (6.0 bpg.), 395 assists (3.7 apg.) and 192 steals (1.8 spg.), each a school record at New Haven High School. As a senior she recorded 23 double-doubles and one triple-double.

But Scheer realizes that the talent level is different at Duke.

“Things take a lot of getting used [to],” Scheer said. “Practices, the times are a lot longer than high school, and there is a lot more discipline involved but so far everything is going really well. The talent level is so much quicker, and you have to remember so many more plays and different drills and stuff. [That] is probably the hardest thing.”

Lucky for her, she has an amazing core of seniors that make sure she is staying on task in all areas of the college life.

“The seniors have been awesome,” Scheer said. “Abby, Chante and Carrem, they are all great leaders. They’re always making sure we are in the right places. Not just necessarily on the court but off the court too. They check in with classes, see how tests are going, they know the classes that we have and the ones that we are struggling in or doing really well in. That is good to have someone to go to, and they have really stepped up and had a great role in that.”

While the seniors have helped her adjustment, so has head coach Joanne P. McCallie. Coach P is pushing the 6’2” forward to learn both the three and the four positions on the basketball court, which McCallie calls, “a very lofty goal for a freshman.”

“Her three ball has been pretty good,” McCallie said. “We would like to see her find a way to shoot that more in practice because she can shoot the three well. We’ve always got to be concerned with people getting ready on the perimeter.”

Scheer though is taking her time and trying to figure out what her strengths and weaknesses are early in her career.

“I kind of hope, as far as my role goes, I am not really focusing on one specific thing because with us learning so much right now I kind of want to go through everything and see what my strengths are and then figure it out from there,” Scheer said.

The freshman has done a pretty good job of figuring things out early on, hauling in six rebounds during the Blue-White Scrimmage with Coach P praising the forward for her work ethic and versatility on the basketball court. She followed that up by scoring five points and recording two steals in an exhibition win over Anderson.

But don’t expect her attitude to change as she becomes more involved on the court during her career. The freshman talks about her arrival to Duke as casually and quietly as any small town girl would talk about playing basketball back in Missouri.

“Probably like my freshman year of high school, I started getting a couple letters and stuff from smaller Division-I schools and then Duke came in the picture a little later than most schools do,” Scheer said. “But with the coaching change to Coach P that was just the way it went.”