Tamika Williams was a nervous wreck on the afternoon of March 2 when she watched the Colorado women’s basketball team play from her seat at the CU Events Center.
In Boulder to see her daughter, CU point guard Jaylyn Sherrod, go through her senior day, Williams’ anxiety had nothing to do with it being the final home game.
Two days earlier, Sherrod broke her nose during a win against Washington. So, on March 2 against Washington State, Sherrod opened the game wearing a protective mask. Within three minutes of the opening tip, Sherrod ditched the uncomfortable mask, which left her nose exposed and mother worried.
“She was so mad,” Sherrod said.
Williams also wasn’t surprised. She knows the tough, determined, hard-headed nature of her daughter.
“That’s Jaylyn,” Williams said with an eye roll, followed by a laugh.
Without that toughness, Sherrod wouldn’t be where she is today, but that’s just one of many endearing qualities that have made her the face and the engine of the 17th-ranked Colorado women’s basketball team and one of the all-time greats in program history.
Led by Sherrod, a 5-foot-7 fifth-year senior from Birmingham, Ala., the fifth-seeded Buffs will face 12th-seeded Drake in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday in Manhattan, Kan. (5 p.m. MT, ESPNews).
A two-time first-team All-Pac-12 performer, Sherrod earned Associated Press All-American honorable mention this week. She is just the sixth player in CU history to earn any type of AP All-American honor and the first since Chucky Jeffery in 2013.
Most important to Sherrod, this will be the third consecutive March Madness appearance for the Buffs, which is remarkable considering where the program was when she first came to Boulder.
“The goal was winning a conference game,” Sherrod said, without exaggeration.
In 2018-19, while Sherrod was still a senior at Ramsay (Ala.) High School, the Buffs went 2-16 in Pac-12 play, placing last in the conference. CU was 14-58 in Pac-12 games in the four years before she arrived.
The transformation of the CU program has been remarkable since then, and it has coincided with Sherrod’s career. In addition to three NCAA Tournaments, CU went 46-40 in Pac-12 play with Sherrod on the team (24-12 the last two seasons).
Sherrod certainly hasn’t been the only factor in the rise of the Buffs’ program. Former Buffs Mya Hollingshead, Peanut Tuitele, Quinessa Caylao-Do, Lesila Finau, Aubrey Knight and Tayanna Jones were all pivotal players for CU at some point in the last five seasons.
Current teammates such as Frida Formann, Quay Miller, Aaronette Vonleh and Kindyll Wetta – and others – have all played major roles in CU’s three-year NCAA Tournament run.
The one constant over the past five years, though, has been Sherrod.
“I take a lot of pride in that,” she said. “I’ve always said I wanted to leave this place better than I started it and found it. Just to be able to say I did that and really was a part of putting Colorado back on the map and just seeing how excited everybody around Boulder is about the team; and the nation really trying to figure us out, trying to figure out how we got here and just the story behind it is just really cool because a lot of hard work and blood sweat and tears went into this.
“I think it’s cool to say I’ve never had a losing season at CU, to say that every year I’ve gotten better and we’ve gotten better as a program. That’s a lot to hang your hat on and just really a testament to the program and everybody that’s in it.”
There’s no question the CU women’s basketball program is better than Sherrod found it as a freshman in 2019. There’s also no question that Sherrod has made personal growth that is equally impressive.
“I would say I’m a different person,” she said.
Some things, of course, never change.
“I’m still the same 17-year-old kid who still will sit in the back of the room with AirPods on and dim my light if I can and not really stand out,” she said.
She’s also still the tough kid who took karate lessons in her youth, first showed flashes of her basketball ability against neighborhood boys long before she got to high school and grew up as an introverted only child.
“I just try to handle things on my own or try to handle them in ways that kind of allow me to figure things out within my own process and stuff like that,” she said.
With that, Sherrod doesn’t easily let others into her world.
Wetta, who is two years younger than Sherrod, was initially intimidated by Sherrod and spent a good chunk of her freshman year in 2021-22 trying to get to know her fellow point guard. Now, they are tight friends.
“I absolutely love that girl to death,” Wetta said last fall.
Even head coach JR Payne said the relationship had to develop over time. When Sherrod got to Boulder, she bonded with then-assistant coach Shandrika Lee and that was about it.
“We were not super tight because she had Shandrika and she didn’t need anyone besides Shandrika,” Payne said. “(Lee) filled every cup she needed.”
And now?
“I can hang around her the same way I hang around my own children,” Payne said.
Payne said she can’t imagine what next year will be like when Sherrod not only isn’t in the lineup, but isn’t walking into the office every day to watch film, talk about a game or her day or simply come in to say hi and grab a her favorite candy – caramel apple suckers – that Payne keeps stocked just for Sherrod.
At some point in the next three weeks, Sherrod will be done playing basketball for the Buffs. Thanks in part to a bonus fifth season granted by the NCAA for all players from the 2020-21 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sherrod has started more games than anyone in CU history (130). She’ll likely leave ranked No. 2 in career assists and she’ll finish top five in steals and top 15 in points.
But the quiet, keep-to-herself Sherrod will most remember the people she has let into her life.
“It’s been probably some of the best years of my life,” she said of being at CU. “I really got to meet a lot of people, be in a lot of spaces. It’s been a great experience. … It’s not that it’s about no longer being able to put on the jersey. I think it’s just not having the same people around every day. Like, I won’t be around JR, who I’ve been with for five years. Now I gotta go try to build that relationship with someone else. I think that’s more so the part that you miss is your relationships you build. I’ve been with the same people for five years.”
Those people have made Sherrod comfortable in Boulder, but they’ve also prepared her for life after CU by making her uncomfortable – especially as her star has risen in the past year to coincide with the Buffs’ success.
“I can’t come back (next year),” she said. “It’s just something that I have to deal with, but give them a lot of credit; they’ve done a great job pushing me out of my comfort zone this year. … I wouldn’t even say it’s more so letting people in, but knowing how to navigate spaces with people that you’re not used to communicating with on a daily basis.”
In her five seasons at CU, Sherrod has had a few people she’s close with move on. Lee, in fact, left CU to pursue a different career two years ago, although she’s still close with the program.
Sherrod has also opened up a bit during the new age of college athletics where players can profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL). She’s not at the same level as Iowa’s Caitlin Clark or LSU’s Angel Reese, but Sherrod said, “NIL has been pretty good to me.”
Along the way, Sherrod earned a bachelor’s degree in three years, obtained a master’s degree and is working on a second master’s.
It’s all helped the tough kid from Birmingham learn how to become an adult.
“At some point, too, I’ve got to grow up,” she said with a smile, adding she’s not sure what her post-CU life will look like, although basketball is likely still in her future.
For now, Sherrod’s still got at least one game to play with the Buffs, and she hopes it’s more. While wearing her new, custom-fitted mask, Sherrod will bring her speed, tenacity and toughness to the court when the Buffs face Drake on Friday.
“It’s just who I am,” she said. “I don’t know anything different, or how to play any differently.”
That attribute has helped CU make a remarkable transformation during her five years in Boulder. But, it’s possible that Sherrod’s personal growth has been just as impressive.
“It’s been good and it’s taught me a lot,” she said. “I wouldn’t change it. I would do it again if I could.”
