It was a long time in the making, but Aisha Muibi planned on proving her coach wrong.
The Academy at Palumbo senior joined the girls basketball team as a raw freshman, having learned the game by watching Joel Embiid videos on YouTube. It sounded silly at the time, but she was determined to do what no other female at Palumbo had ever done — score 1,000 points.
On Jan. 13, it was no joking matter, as Muibi scored 36 points to breeze by the 1,000-point milestone in the second quarter in a game against mighty Universal Audenried Charter School.
“It feels great,” Muibi said. “It’s always been my goal since freshman year, so to achieve that goal is really a big thing for me. My freshman year, I only had 177 points so I knew I needed to work harder to get to this point.”
Coach Chris Donnelly remembers a conversation prior to Muibi’s junior year. The coach had to let the player down easy.
“She said to me, ‘Coach, do you think I’m going to make 1,000 points?’ ” Donnelly recalled. “At the time she had about 420. I said no. But she made it her ambition to prove me wrong. And I’ve never been happier to be wrong.”
Despite her error, Donnelly is still a good judge of character. She and Muibi are close as Donnelly also coaches the Griffins’ flag football team where Muibi was a star player and together they won a Public League title in the spring. Donnelly knows a lot about Muibi’s team-first attitude.
“She’s a good egg,” Donnelly said. “She’s just a great kid. Even at the end of the game, she could have scored more, but she passed up the shot to give one to (freshman) Adri (McKee) who hardly gets to score. Not everybody is going to do that. She’s a very team-oriented player. And it’s really unusual that someone team-oriented scores 1,000 points.”
The achievement didn’t go unnoticed around school. The Griffins’ tight gymnasium was jam-packed with students who counted down the 15 points needed with signs and chants. The Griffins fell behind defending Public League champ Audenried, but you wouldn’t know it by the sound of each pop, every time Muibi inched closer to her goal. Once the milestone was hit, students rushed the court and celebrated with Muibi as a banner was unveiled and Muibi was handed a commemorative game ball for the trophy case.
“She didn’t want any of this,” Donnelly said. “She doesn’t like to brag. She doesn’t like the limelight. I had to beg her permission to do all of this.”
Muibi shared a quick smile before turning her attention to her next goal.
“It’s nice to be the first girl in the school and now I’m aiming to be the highest scorer,” she said. The Griffins have had a few 1,000 point scorers in boys basketball, but Muibi knows the record is within range. At the conclusion of the 71-54 loss, Muibi was believed to be within 50 points of the record. She’s more happy with her team’s success as Palumbo was 7-3 to start the season.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” Muibi said. “We’re more of a family so our chemistry is good. Even when we make mistakes, we make sure to pick ourselves back up. Everyone makes mistakes, so we tell ourselves it’s OK.”
Make no mistake about it, there were plenty of smiles despite the loss.
“It was awesome,” Donnelly said. “She doesn’t brag and she’s not boastful but we had to tell her that we wanted to celebrate her. The whole school community came out for this and wanted to celebrate her because she’s not one to celebrate herself.”
