On the Wave: Quiet on the court and off, Kolby Morgan now one of best in Tulane hoops history

NEW ORLEANS – Kolby Morgan’s numbers speak for themselves.

She has 2,192 career points, second-most ever at Tulane.

She has made 759 field goals, attempted 1,786 field goals and started 128 games, all the most ever at Tulane.

She is the only player in team history to reach 1,000 career points in her first two seasons. She has 650 career rebounds.

So it should be obvious what a tremendous basketball player she is.

But away from the hardwood, who is Kolby Morgan? The numbers speak for themselves because Morgan doesn’t like to.

“I am really laid back as a person off the floor,” Morgan said. “I don’t talk a lot and kind of keep to myself. But, once you get to know me I am really goofy and playful.”

The Green Wave senior describes herself as quiet and says she doesn’t like crowds. She rarely finds herself out shopping because the malls feel too congested. She stays away from people online, too. No Twitter account. Same with Instagram. Has Facebook but never checks it. Her only real social media outlet is Snapchat.

When she calmly drops 20 points in a game, she remains stoic. No big deal. Nothing to celebrate.

Her 2,000th career point came a month ago, and she didn’t even realize it. The crowd at Fogelman in Devlin was going wild around her, celebrating her accomplishment as it flashed on the video board. Morgan was clueless. There was no sign on her face that she had done anything special.

“Me and Coach were like, “Why is everyone cheering? What is going on?”

Her preferred method of relaxation? Going to a movie or going out to eat with friends. Her favorite movie all-time is Love and Basketball, though she recently enjoyed a trip to the theater to watch Black Panther. She’s watching superhero shows The Flash and Arrow on Netflix currently, and her favorite superhero is Superwoman.

On the court, Morgan might as well be wearing that “S” on her chest. With 110 career games scoring double figures, including 20 double-figure scoring games as a freshman, she has been leading the Tulane offense for years.

Well before her basketball greatness began, Morgan was a competitive child who wanted to take part in any sport her brothers Malik and Kai were playing. At age 9, she broke wooden boards and jump-kicked her way to a black belt in karate with Malik. Baseball was also on her list.

Morgan also had aspirations to join a boys’ football team as the kicker. That’s where her mother, Detra – a two-time All-Southeastern Conference volleyball player at LSU – drew the line.

Basketball, though, was always the sport that stuck. Morgan remembers playing a game at age 7 of 8 wearing all-blue, high-top Converse sneakers. Her father, Sam, who played basketball at Southern University, was her coach at the time.

She can’t recall if she won or lost that particular game, and she doesn’t even think she scored a point, but the memory of going out to dinner with her parents afterward has stuck more than a decade later. That night, complete with those all-blue sneakers, are immortalized in a photo album at her parents’ house.

“My parents were always so proud of me,” Morgan said. “I didn’t do anything in the game, but it was a motivation to continue to keep playing and playing hard. They were so happy and kept pushing me to do better.”

As her basketball career continued, her parents’ motivation combined with the toughness she learned playing against boys. When she went off to middle school, AAU and high school teams where she could only play against girls, things seemed easier for her. Now, Morgan is unafraid to slash to the basket, take a hit and crash to the floor. She has Malik and Kai to thank.

“When I got knocked down as a kid they would be like, “Come on get up!'” Morgan said. “It was nothing to them because they are always rough. So when I hit the floor now, I am not going to be down for too long. I am going to get back up for sure.”

In high school locally at John Curtis Christian, Morgan was coached by former Tulane and WNBA star Barbara Farris. Morgan would follow her high school coach to Tulane, staying local and knowing she could get a tremendous education.

From her first game as a Green Wave player, Morgan was a scorer. She reached double figures in the first eight games of her career, was in the starting lineup by her third game and was named American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Week four times. She earned Third Team All-AAC honors as well when her first season was complete.

At the end of her sophomore season, Morgan became the only Tulane player ever to reach 1,000 career points in her first two years. A Second-Team All-AAC selection followed that season and her junior year. Now as a senior, she’s on pace for potentially her best scoring season ever with 19.2 points per game.

But she sees growth in other places. She tries to take charges more than she did as a freshman. She distributes the ball better than she used to and knows how to get open better. She talks more to her teammates on the court, directing traffic and calling out plays.

When her Tulane career comes to a close, Morgan plans to play basketball at the next level. Whether that means the WNBA or overseas, she doesn’t know. She’d love to get a chance at the WNBA, but she’ll be happy to follow an overseas path like her former teammate, Leslie Vorpahl, who is now playing in Romania.

“I want to go until my body shuts down,” Morgan said. “I want to continue to play until I can’t play anymore.”

After that, Morgan plans on becoming a basketball coach. She will be a part of the “So You Want to be a Coach?” program this March run by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. There she could learn important lessons about what it takes to be a coach at the college level.

Wherever she winds up, there’s no doubt Morgan will be remembered long after she leaves Tulane. Green Wave fans will bring up the 2,192 career points. They’ll talk about the buzzer-beating shots, big wins and her smooth jumper.

But that’s not necessarily how Morgan will think of herself.

“I want to be remembered as being that competitor who was a self-driven, self-motivated person,” she said. “But also someone who was willing to bring her teammates along. A leader who was competitive and who worked hard.”