Like the team she plays on, Smith is a sleeper. Quietly, she is fourth in AUS scoring, averaging 14 points per game, and the Axewomen, again without much attention, are playing their best basketball of the season with the tournament creeping closer.
By: Monty Mosher
Chanel Smith may not have had any free will when it came to sports, particularly basketball.
It would appear destiny wanted her on a basketball court somewhere, or maybe a softball diamond.
The family tree screams athlete for the 21-year-old Acadia Axewomen player, now in her fourth season.
It's hard to attract much attention when you play for the Axewomen, who will play in the quarter-finals at the AUS basketball tournament starting March 3 at Scotiabank Centre.
Paloma Anderson is a star, regionally and nationally, and is on her way to leading the conference, and the nation, in scoring.
But, like the team she plays on, Smith is a sleeper. Quietly, she is fourth in AUS scoring, averaging 14 points per game, and the Axewomen, again without much attention, are playing their best basketball of the season with the tournament creeping closer.
Smith, a five-foot-seven guard, thinks the Axewomen are good enough to win the AUS and compete at the nationals.
She said she will be disappointed if they get anything less.
"I think we have the talent to get there," Smith said this week. "We've beaten teams that have been ranked in the top 10. We have all the pieces I think to be a contender at the national level. I guess it will be a matter of us coming together when it really counts on the first weekend in March."
Acadia head coach Len Harvey said Smith is a scoring threat who often goes unnoticed.
"I think this year she is getting tougher defensive opponents because she has become such a threat," Harvey said.
"Paloma, being who she is, will have different schemes at play against her. But when you have Chanel scoring 15 points a game it gives opponents other things to think about."
Smith played for her father, Thane, from the time she was in pre-school through her high school days at Halifax West.
Thane and his brother Wade, a former St. Francis Xavier X-Men, will coach the Nova Scotia Canada Games men's team later this year.
Uncle Mark was pretty handy on a softball diamond and is the current coach of Canada's national women's team heading into the 2020 Olympics.
Brother Chad played two seasons for the Dalhousie Tigers. That's just scratching the surface. Chanel's mother, Denise, grew up in Truro and played for Cobequid.
In the summer going into Grade 12, Smith played on the provincial women's team with head coach Bev Greenlaw, then the Acadia women's coach. That team won a silver medal at nationals.
There were other players on that team—Allie Berry, Katie Ross and Maire Burke—who were headed to Acadia.
"It was an easy choice for me, especially after the success we had that summer," she said of heading down to the road to Wolfville. "Acadia was pretty close to home, only an hour away, and it seemed like the right place to go.
I liked the campus and I knew it was a really good school academically, so everything fell into place like that."
Acadia had won a rare women's basketball championship title under Greenlaw in 2012, but the program was struggling for success when Smith arrived.
They were 5-15 in her rookie year and 4-16 in her second year. Greenlaw retired making way for Harvey.
"Initially it was kind of hard just letting go seeing Bev was the reason I came here. But I'd heard a lot of good things about Len and I ended up getting into the gym a lot with him when he first arrived in Wolfville. So it really wasn't a hard transition."
Anderson had arrived midway through Greenlaw's last season, showing glimpses of the dynamic player she would become.
Acadia took off a year ago, posting a 16-4 record and earning a first-round bye. But they got tripped up by Cape Breton in their tournament opener.
So if last year was good, this year had to be great. The core of the team was back.
But the team lost its first four conference games—two each to Saint Mary's and Cape Breton—and was 2-5 at the holiday break.
They were 3-3 in January, but, helped by an improving defence, are 4-1 in February with two home games this weekend against Memorial to close the regular season.
"Coming off last year, a lot of people expected, including us, a better outcome than what we've had so far," Smith said. "I think because we have pretty much the same team, and a little bit better, we didn't expect this outcome, but at the same time it almost was good for us in a way to have a rocky start. I feel now that we are getting to the end of the season we've really gone through a lot of adversity make us better than if we hadn't. We're not worried about our record. We're coming together at the right time."
Harvey describes Smith as a "balanced person" who knows what to say when it is her time to speak.
"I think one of the characteristics that is most impressive with her is she has her finger on the pulse of everybody, so her leadership style isn't the same with each person. That's why she has a lot of credibility with the girls."
Saint Mary's, with four straight titles, will enter the tournament as the favourite. But they've shown they are human in the course of the season and all the other teams in the tournament have taken turns beating each other.
"It's pretty crazy," Smith said. "Every time you check the scores somebody has beaten somebody you wouldn't have expected. It's anybody's league, for sure. The playoffs are going to be fun."