Charlotte’s McMillian is becoming one of the best players in women’s college basketball

Jada McMillian always could shoot the ball.

There was the night in March 2015 when she stole the ball just seconds before halftime in a high school tournament game, dribbled to midcourt and unleashed a half-court shot that sailed through the basket as the buzzer sounded.

As a member of the Charlotte 49ers’ women’s basketball team, McMillian has added to her skills, especially with defense and passing. Now she’s adding leadership to the mix.

McMillian and the 49ers will be in action this weekend at Western Kentucky, playing Friday and Saturday afternoons.

Leadership doesn’t come naturally, McMillian, a 5-foot-7 junior guard, says.

“I’m not an outgoing person,” she said. “I’m kind of laid-back.”

But 49ers coach Cara Consuegra is seeing McMillian evolve.

“I was looking at tape of a game a few weeks ago, and I noticed that during a timeout, Jada pulled a couple other players closer to her,” Consuegra says. “She was gesturing about something she wanted them to do. She was animated. I had to look at it a second time.”

McMillian seems to have most of the other basketball stuff mastered pretty well.

She is averaging 17.6 points and 4.6 assists per game, near the top of Conference USA in each category. In a recent two-game series against UAB, she scored 54 points and grabbed 17 rebounds.

McMillian was named to the NCAA Starting Five, as one of the nation’s five best players, for the week Jan. 11-17.

“She is finally really stepping into what we’ve all known she can be,” Consuegra says. “She’s super coachable. She wants to learn.”

Being in the spotlight is a long distance from where McMillian started.

“I was shy,” she says of her childhood in Raleigh.

Her father, Shawn, talked her into joining a recreation league basketball team.

“I said ‘no’ a few times, but I finally joined,” she says. “I learned that I liked it.”

By the time she reached Southeast Raleigh High, McMillian was a standout. During her four years at the school, Southeast Raleigh had a combined record of 115-10. In the 2018 4A state championship game, she scored a team-high 11 points in a 44-36 loss to Northwest Guilford. McMillian was named her team’s most valuable player.

She was recruited by several schools but says she fell in love with Charlotte.

“Once I visited the campus, I knew I wanted to be here,” says McMillian, who is majoring in health systems management.

She was named national Freshman of the Week late in her freshman season with the 49ers and started all 30 games and led the team in assists as a sophomore.

Consuegra says leadership was the one area where she had hoped McMillian would develop this year.

“Leadership is something we were missing, with the loss of a couple players from last year,” Consuegra says. “Early on, she seemed reluctant. In the past few weeks, she’s embraced what we need of her.”

McMillian says being a team leader in the time of COVID-19 extends beyond the basketball court.

“I felt it was a good time for me to make my teammates feel more comfortable,” she says. “Mental health is important, and COVID has put a strain on that.”

She notes that players stay mostly in isolation on campus. “And isolation has taken a toll,” she says.

McMillian says she tries to stay in touch with teammates and talk to them about what they’re feeling.

“Nobody has ever gone through this before,” she says. “We’re all learning as we go.”

Winning helps.

The 49ers (5-4, 4-0) are first in the conference. Western Kentucky (3-9, 2-4) wasn’t even supposed to be Charlotte’s opponent this weekend. The 49ers were scheduled to visit Florida International, but COVID issues in the FIU program forced the conference to make a change.

“The ceiling on this team is limitless,” McMillian says. “We have so many weapons, and we’re capable of doing a lot.

“But we have more work to do as a team. And I’m part of that. I’m working to do better at everything I have to do.”