Jasmine Sina was a star basketball player at Gill St. Bernard’s School in New Jersey. As a four year letter-winner, she led her team to a 102-16 record, scored over 1,200 career points and received all-area and all-county honors. However, for much of her senior season, Sina could not find a Division I school to offer her a collegiate scholarship. Standing at only 5-foot-5, many coaches were scared off by her height.
“I had a pretty tough recruiting process, more because I was a shorter basketball player,” Sina said. “A lot of coaches didn’t really like that about me.”
Sina had an offer to play at nearby Division II Caldwell College for then-head coach Linda Cimino, but she dreamed of playing basketball at the top collegiate level.
“I was planning on doing a prep year in New Jersey,” Sina said. “I had my plans set on that. I really wanted to play Division I. My heart was really set on Division I. My dad helped me a lot. He played professionally in Europe. He helped me just being patient and not to stress over every little thing. Everything happens for a reason and he knew that something was going to come to me.”
And something did come. In April, Binghamton University announced it was hiring Cimino as its new women’s basketball coach. One of her first calls was to Sina, offering her a scholarship and a chance to fulfill her dream. Cimino looked past her height, instead seeing tremendous potential in her first recruit to the Bearcats.
“If you didn’t know how tall she was, you wouldn’t think she was that little or that she is a freshman,” Cimino said of Sina. “She has great control on the court, she can shoot, she is poised and she is a leader.”
For Sina, the chance to play at a D1 school for a coach who believed she could excel despite her height was a no-brainer.
“Once coach Cimino got the job here, she called me the next day and offered me,” Sina said. “I visited the school, I knew coach Cimino previous to her getting the job here, she came to some of our open gyms in high school and I fell in love with her as a coach. I was really happy that she got the job here. Having her as a coach was a great opportunity for me to play. She didn’t really look at my height as an issue. That was a big reason why I respected her a lot.”
Since entering the Bearcat program, Sina has been impressive in demonstrating tremendous floor vision and ability to shoot the ball from behind the 3-point line. She scored 18 points, including six 3-pointers in BU’s exhibition against Mansfield, and has been named the team’s starting point guard heading into the regular season. As a freshman, this carries a tremendous amount of responsibility. But Sina seems to be up for the challenge.
“It is a little nerve wracking — I’m not going to lie,” Sina said. “There is some pressure there. I think I am ready for it. It is going to be tough at times — I know that is going to come … But I think once the ball tips, all the nerves go away. Once that first game of the season comes there will be some nerves arriving, but I think it will all go away once the games get started.”
While Sina may have impressed this far in her brief career at the top level of college basketball, she will not forget all of the coaches who overlooked her because of her height.
“It gives me that much more motivation and even a challenge to take on,” Sina said of being passed over. “I just want to prove to everyone that I can play at this height at this level, I know that it will be hard, but it gives me extra motivation.”