“When I was little, they were pushing engineering on the kids,” she said. “They had a bunch of free engineering camps and STEM camps, and my mom signed me up for them.
“She wanted to keep my brain active in the summer and that’s how I fell in love with engineering.”
Not a big talker when it comes to touting her hoops successes — she was named Miss PSL (Public School League) when she played for Renaissance High in Detroit and Wednesday night she finished with 12 points, six rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots in just 21 minutes — she smiled and became more loquacious when she recalled those kid camps:
“I remember one camp, every week we were in small groups and we had to build something.
“One time it was a gravity cruiser and at the end of that week we competed against each other to see whose went the fastest and could carry the most weight.
“Another time we did paper airplanes to see whose could fly the farthest. We added weights to the front sometimes and to the back other times. We changed the design of the wings, all kinds of things.”
Today Wheeler is a mechanical engineering student at UD with close to a 3.3 GPA. She’ll get her degree in the spring.
It’s not often you find basketball players who are engineering students – although sophomore guard Denika Lightbourne is in electrical engineering – because of the time commitment and challenging workloads that come with both pursuits.
“Our academic staff here is a great help,” Wheeler said “Beth Flach (Director of Athletic Academic Services) helps us a lot.
“And Coach Meek (Williams-Jeter) always says if we need extra time to study, she’ll give us that time.”
Wheeler’s projects these days are a little more complex than those kid camp ventures.
She said she’s working with Honda this year, building paint spray booth tensors.
“And we’re also working with urban farmers at the Mission of Mary,” she said.
There’s a depth to Wheeler she doesn’t easily reveal to outsiders — she also a self-taught piano and guitar player — and in some ways that’s been the case on the basketball court the past few seasons.
“I believe in her more on the offense end than she trusts herself,” Williams-Jeter said after Wednesday’s victory upped the Flyers mark to 12-7 and 6-2 in the Atlantic 10. “I’m excited she shot the three tonight and she tried to drive and make plays.”
In the first 16 games this season Wheeler attempted only two three-point shots and missed them both. In fact, she had never made more than two three pointers in any of her seasons here. Going into the Saint Louis game she was 5 for 26 from beyond the arc in her career.
Wednesday, she hoisted two three-point attempts and made them both.
She regularly fed the ball in to the Flyers force in the paint, Arianna Smith, who finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds.
“Tonight, Shannon played more like I want her to play,” Williams-Jeter said. “And she can do more and more of this for us.”
Staying at UD
A McDonald All-American nominee as a senior, Wheeler had college offers from several schools, including Temple, Detroit Mercy, Cleveland State, Western Michigan and Dayton.
When she was being recruited in the spring of 2020, COVID had shut down college athletics — and the universities — and interaction with coaches was reduced to Zoom calls and, in the case of UD, one surreal campus visit.
“Me and my family came down, but the coaches couldn’t personally talk to me or take me around,” she said “They gave us a map and we walked by ourselves. There wasn’t anybody else on campus and the buildings were locked. It was so I could get a feel for the place.”
Credit: Erik Schelkun
Credit: Erik Schelkun
That worked. She signed with the Flyers and then went on to a senior season and led her team to a state runner-up finish while getting all-state honors in both basketball and academics.
Her first season at UD, the Flyers went 26-6 and beat No. 11 DePaul in the NCAA Tournament before falling to No. 6 Georgia.
After the season coach Shauna Green left for Illinois. Five players transferred, five others graduated, a recruit decommitted and the Flyers roster was left gutted.
When Williams-Jeter took over, just four players with little experience — Wheeler, Destiny Bohanon, Maliya Perry and Mariah Perez — were left. And before the end of the season, Perry was gone as well.
Wheeler stayed because she said she had family members who knew of Williams-Jeter and spoke highly of her.
“And I had an old teammate, Morasha Wiggins — she plays for Arizona State now — she was mentored by Coach Meek and liked her.”
The Flyers started that 2022-23 season 0-10 and finished 7-21.
Things improved to 12-19 last season.
Now UD is tied for second place in the A-10 standings and meets league leader Richmond on Sunday at UD Arena.
Depth a key for Flyers
Wednesday night, Saint Louis aimed much of its defensive effort at the Flyers sharpshooter Ivy Wolf, who ranks in the top 10 in the country in three pointers per game and three-point percentage and leads the Atlantic 10 in treys per game.
Wolf, who came in leading the Flyers with a 17.7 ppg average, spent part of the game on the sidelines with what she thought was a cracked tooth after a collision on the floor. She finished with five points and was 0 for 3 from long range.
It was her lowest point output of the season and the only time in 19 games this season that she didn’t make at least one three.
“Me and Ivy looked at each other with one minute left and I said, ‘We would have done lost this game last year,” Williams-Jeter said. “Last year, if she couldn’t score, we weren’t going to have enough offense.”
That’s the big improvement with this team.
With eight new players — five transfers and three freshmen — the Flyers have depth and several other players who can step into a starring role now.
Against Saint Louis there were some especially unlikely spotlight moments.
Along with Wheeler making her first two treys of the season, Nayo Lear shot her first three of the year and made it. And freshman post player Molly O’Riordan, who was 1 for 9 from long range this season, made both of her attempts from beyond the arc.
UD’s bench outscored SLU, 35-2. Add in point guard Nicole Stephens’ 15 points and UD had too much for the Billikens.
This was the first time the Williams-Jeter coached Flyers had beaten SLU, which had won the past four games.
Last week was the same story with Duquesne, UD beat the Dukes, 80-71, on their home court. A year ago, Duquesne came into UD Arena and embarrassed the Flyers, 70-42.
“I’m excited everybody, for the most part, got to contribute tonight,” Williams-Jeter said.
She praised several people afterward, especially Wheeler, who finally came out of her shell:
“She’s working hard in practice, and I think you’re seeing an upward trajectory in her game.”
It sounds kind of like Wheeler’s engineering camp days as a kid, when she folded and refolded a paper airplane, added a weight here, took one away there, and soon her effort was soaring above and beyond the capabilities of the others.
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