Isabella Conte is not your usual point guard.
Forget the fact she started playing basketball as a forward and moved to the backcourt. That’s mere commonplace.
What makes the Hamilton West senior so unique, is that she plans on going into aerospace engineering after having the desire to be an astronaut while growing up. Which is only fitting, since the Hornets girls’ basketball season actually blasted off after Conte moved to the point.
Despite missing the state tournament by one spot, the Hornets enjoyed their best season and posted their most wins since a 13-13 finish in 2010-11. And that came after an 0-5 start.
“Izz Conte running the point was phenomenal,” coach Rob Farina said. “With her providing that leadership moving to point guard we won two out of three in the West Windsor Christmas tournament and that totally changed the entire season.”
Hamilton had a proven scorer in Zaire Galloway, but had no one to run the show. After starting 0-2 and falling behind 18-5 at halftime against Trenton, Farina decided to try Conte as the facilitator. After looking awful for one half, West outscored Trenton 20-16 after intermission.
At first the switch seemed moot as Hamilton lost its next two badly, but a 40-33 win over West Windsor-Plainsboro North sparked a five-game winning streak, and Hamilton was respectable for the rest of the way.
“A lot of people didn’t think we were going to have as successful a season as we did,” Conte said. “Losing those first five games made the morale go down. Once we won the first game we were like ‘OK, we’re starting to figure ourselves out.’
“We had a lot of new people in our rotation. I feel like we needed to learn to play together well. Once we figured it out we came together as a team. Winning those five games in a row definitely was a morale boost and helped us know that even if we lost a few games we could find our way back and win some more.”
The athletic Conte, a four-year varsity performer in soccer, basketball and lacrosse, averaged 5.4 points and 4.3 rebounds per game while leading the Hornets in assists.
“Honestly it was a little stressful at first,” she said of the new position. “He always reiterated ‘‘It’s not your job to win the game for the team, you just bring it up with composure and start getting something going and rely on your teammates to also help with the offense.’
“Seeing everyone else do it for the last three years helped. And since I sometimes play goalie in soccer I know how to direct people and see everyone on the field. I think that helped translate to basketball in seeing everyone on the floor and running the point.”
Conte said that the longer she handled the position, the more comfortable she became.
“Some teams would challenge us and it would be more of a struggle and there would be challenges we had to get through,” she said. “I found it interesting to see new challenges as they arose, and figuring out how to get through each new challenge. I liked finding new ways to adapt to what we needed to do based on how we were playing and the way the game was going.”
Farina realized early on that Hamilton might not win a game if he could not find someone to handle the ball. The fact he asked Conte to do it wasn’t just a panic move. He knew she had the right temperament for the experiment.
“She just has that mindset,” the coach said. “There’s kids out there when things get hard they quit. I’ve got girls where I say ‘Fo to the high post right now,’ and they say ‘I can’t do that coach.’ Izz Conte is the opposite of that. Wherever you tell her to go, she’s gonna go.
“I have a phenomenal coaching staff. We’ve got real basketball people on our staff, some old school players, and they all said ‘You’ve gotta make Isabella Conte the point guard.’ She accepted that. Never said a word. She knew we didn’t have any ball handlers.”
Conte realized a change was necessary. She wasn’t sure if she was the answer, but knew things couldn’t keep going as they were.
“After the first couple of games it felt like we needed something,” Conte said. “We didn’t really know what it was. I think that I sort of saw myself succeeding and being the point guard even if it wasn’t necessarily scoring all the points. It helped to move the game along and really fuel us into being able to play well together and not just turn the ball over and get flustered. We started keeping our cool and being able to score just from being calm and collective. “
Although not a scorer, Conte did tallie double figures four times and also played strong defense with 47 steals. What really impressed was her rebounding. It was in her blood from being a forward, but playing on the perimeter she didn’t have as many opportunities and still got her share.
“I started playing forward my freshman year and I knew I wasn’t necessarily a great scorer,” Conte said. “But I knew I could rebound. I was strong enough to be able to box out and put a body on the girls under the basket. I think it comes from that and working on the defensive side of things rather than just offensive.
“I didn’t have as many opportunities to get those rebounds playing guard. But when I had the opportunity, just having the work ethic and hustle the entire game is something that helps with that.”
Farina will vouch for that work ethic. In fact, he will gush about it.
“I use her as an example every single year of what boxing out looks like,” the coach said. “The kid boxes out every play. She played hurt the entire second half of the season and she still was just a beast. She was our captain, she wanted to be captain and she provided great leadership.
“She’s an incredible kid. I wish we could have more Isabella Contes. A phenomenal young lady. She has a great basketball IQ and off the court she’s brilliant.”
Brilliant enough to have some big-time career goals.
She took several classes at Mercer County Technical School, including a number of engineering courses that she found interesting.
“I’ve always been interested in space the whole time I was growing up,” she said. “I sort of combined those classes with that interest and decided I wanted to further my career with what I was learning in my classes.”
Just what was it she loved about space?
“I’ve always said I wanted to be an astronaut,” she said. “I’ve always found it interesting, just everything out there, everything about it. Also just being able to learn about all the stars and all the planets. I always loved doing that.”
Conte has been preparing for that future with numerous activities. She has made several planetarium trips, was the president of Hamilton’s Robotics Club and has taken engineer-based electives with her classes at West. She also paints and draws pictures of landscapes and such, and has found a way to incorporate that talent into her interest.
“I’m into designing,” she said. “I took an intro to engineering class and we did technical drawings. I found that to be really fun as well. The designing and math aspect is fun to me.”
If it sounds like Conte is smart, she is. She has a 3.96 unweighted grade point average and is planning on doing Air Force ROTC wherever she goes to college. She’s unsure if she still wants to be an astronaut but won’t rule it out, saying, “I don’t know. . .if it takes me there.”
Conte’s course load is the kind that can cause a lot of stress and pressure at times. Fortunately, she has athletics to fall back on. “I think that being able to go to practice you’re not really thinking about the pressures of your school work; it gives you an escape from that for a couple hours,” she said. “Even if the game you’re playing is a little stressful, it’s still having fun with your friends and your teammates. So that works well as an escape.”
Having Conte take over at point guard worked well as an escape from what could have been a rough season for the Hornets. And turned it into their best campaign in 15 years.
