Tyeisha Brown’s dad played basketball all the time. That’s what brought her to the game.-

“It was his life all the time. He ended up buying me one of those little Nerf hoops as my first toy,” the Sacramento State senior point guard said. “He used to pick me up and let me dunk the ball all the time.”-

Sac State’s women’s basketball team is very happy that she did stick with it, as she has helped lead the Hornets’ resurgence this season. As the team’s leading scorer this season, Brown, who is averaging 10.3 points per game through Sunday, has provided a spark for the team that has helped lead Sac State to a 7-17 overall mark — their best in six years.-

The native of Vallejo started her college career at Cal State Northridge, playing a year there, calling it a great experience. However, after a midseason coaching change, Brown said that she decided to move on.-

“Once the assistant coach took over, the program kind of went into shambles and it wasn’t where I wanted to be at the point,” Brown said.-

From Northridge, she moved onto familiar ground, moving back up to the Bay Area to play for her former AAU coach, Mike Fulton, at the College of Marin.-

“Out of high school, I had said that if I didn’t go anywhere, I would go and play for him because he is a great coach,” Brown said. “So once Northridge fell through and I came back up and went to Marin.”-

One of the Sac State’s toughest players, Brown said that one of the things that made her better was Marin’s frequent trips to play against men’s squads.-

“He always had us playing against guys because they were definitely better athletes and better ballplayers,” Brown said. “It definitely worked. It was a rough time.-

“We got close, but we never beat them.”-

After Marin, Brown was offered a chance to play at schools like Iowa. However, Sac State head coach Dan Muscatell was able to attract Brown to Sac State partly through his relationship with Fulton.-

“Mike Fulton, who is a friend of mine, called me and said that he had a player that I needed to take a look at,” Muscatell said. –

One of Muscatell’s first recruits, Brown decided on Sac State partly because of her family, with whom she is very close.-

“I talked to my parents and decided that I wanted to stay close to home because there were offers from Iowa and places that were far out,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to go too far from home. But I also knew that there was a new head coach, and my coach said that he thought he was a pretty good guy.”-

For Muscatell, it was a simple choice to offer her a scholarship.-

“We knew that she was definitely a good athlete and that she could defend anyone,” he said. “She had an ability to generate offense from everywhere. She believes that she can take on the world.”-

Last year was a trial for Brown, who hates losing. –

“It was a building period. I know that throughout my life, I have learned how to win. I have had to step into winning programs and earn that respect,” Brown said. “Now I really feel like the confidence and the belief in one another is guiding us over.”-

This year has also been a trial, but for different reasons. Last year, Brown started the majority of her games, coming off the bench at the beginning of the season only because of injury. –

This year, though, she was the team’s sixth woman until about halfway through the season.”He said that he wanted me to be his Bobby Jackson and so I wanted to be the best Bobby Jackson I could be,” Brown said. “Some nights it was hard, but I got my chances coming off the bench.”-

Muscatell inserted her into the starting lineup first against Northern Arizona.-

“After the game against Davis, one of my frustrations was out of lack of effort, so I took a look at who was playing the hardest and stuck them all into the lineup,” Muscatell said. –

With an intense style of play, Brown led the team in scoring last year and continues to lead it this year, although she has seen her points per game average rise from 8.2 last year, to 10.3 this year. Part of that, Muscatell says, is a result of that faith in her teammates.-

“As she has really started to trust her teammates more and seen her assists numbers rise, the team has risen as well,” Muscatell said. –

This is Brown’s final season, and she hopes that she can finish one more piece of business before she tries to move on to the next level.-

“It being my last year, I would really enjoy making the tournament and trying to surprise a few teams,” Brown says. “If I get the opportunities to continue to play basketball, that would be great. –

“Anything is possible.”