BLOOMINGTON — Sara Scalia’s strength was never a question.

She grew up as a small, skinny kid, her father, Peter Scalia, said. But even when the IU women’s basketball guard was little, she had some kind of superhuman ability to heave a ball just as far as she wanted.

Take the Scalia family vacations, for example. The Scalias are an athletic family — Peter played basketball at  Centenary, her mother, Sheri, played volleyball and softball at Minnesota-Duluth, her older sister, Taylor, played volleyball, and her younger sister, Amber, plays basketball. So, they would always pack a deflated basketball and football in their suitcases for their trips.

On these vacations, Sara wasn’t too interested in swimming.

“She was always a twig,” Peter told IndyStar. “Every spring break, we would go on family trips …  We'd go to the swimming pools, and she could barely keep her chin out of the water.”

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Instead, she and Peter would throw the football — not an official regulation football, but a smaller one — across the pool.

Sara, as an elementary-age student, didn’t have the look to be able to chuck a football, even a small one, as far as she wanted. But she mesmerized everyone with her ability and adults would approach Peter and wonder just how she got that strong.

“She would jump out of the water to get her arms free, and then throw the best spiral you'll ever see in your life — about 40 yards,” Peter said. “I could not believe how this little thing could one, throw it that far, but two, it was a spiral every time. … Guys that are in the pool, they go, ‘What is going on here? How is this little thing jumping out of the water and throwing this football 40 yards through the pool?’ And I would just laugh because I'm like, again, I can't explain it.”

Football was never in her future, though — her first and only love was always basketball. But that uncanny strength allowed Sara to become one of the best 3-point shooters in the Big Ten.

‘This is not normal’

Sara’s strength chucking footballs across pools easily translated to her early basketball training.

She and her father — who was also her travel basketball coach — would frequent their local health club to put up shots as early as the second grade. Unlike most young basketball players, who tried out a layup before moving further out, the first shot Sara learned how to perfect was beyond the arc.

“I have always just liked shooting 3s,” Sara told IndyStar last week. “I just wanted to work on that part of my game, and I’d obviously rather have a 3than a 2… it was definitely the first thing I worked on. I would just kind of go into the gym and my shooting workout would be strictly 3-point shooting.”

There, the same thing would happen as at the pool — parents teaching their kids, who were usually a couple years older than Sara at the time, how to shoot, would go up to Peter, wondering how his 8-year-old was easily making shots 20 feet from the hoop.

“I remember one time specifically, I saw him walking towards me and he goes ‘Is this normal?’” Peter said. “And I said, ‘You know what? You keep working with your daughter. You're doing a great job. This is not normal.’”

Over the years, Sara eventually learned the rest of her shot arsenal, including mid-range shots and layups. Still, as early as eighth grade, when players could join their high school basketball teams in Minnesota, she quickly became known as her team’s designated 3-point shooter.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the details. After collecting a pass beyond the arc, Sara can adjust the basketball in her hands to put her fingertips on the seams of the basketball in the blink of an eye — similar to how a quarterback puts his fingers on the laces of their football.

However instantaneous it is, she does it without looking every time she gets the basketball — at this point in her career, it’s muscle memory.

“She doesn't even really know she's doing it,” Peter said. “But she can feel the ball, and she can feel where the seams are, so her hands are in the right spot every time.”

Her innate 3-point shooting sense led her to Minnesota, where she was again the Gophers’ designated deep threat. She spent three years as a starter at Minnesota, shooting 37% from 3-point range in those years. In her junior season, she took 269 attempts from beyond the arc — nearly double her next highest teammate.

Following her junior year, though, she knew it was time for a change.

Honing her craft at IU

Following the 2021-22 season, there was a mass exodus of players from the Minnesota program. Seven players, including Scalia, entered the transfer portal.

She knew it was time to leave. Most of her friends had already entered the portal, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to become the player she wanted to be at Minnesota.

“I wanted to win and be on a competitive team,” Scalia said. “... I wanted to start new.”

While most players jumped in the portal immediately after the Gophers’ season ended, Scalia took some time after the season to discuss with her family — specifically, her dad, who was against it at first.

“I've always been loyal to the team or whatever it is, like work,” Peter said. “I was sort of against it just because I was like, ‘You committed here.’ But she convinced me that this is what she wanted to do.”

When Sara told her dad she was considering transferring, the two met at a pizza place in Minneapolis — just 30 minutes away from their hometown of Stillwater — and discussed her options in length. After they came to an agreement transferring would be best for her, they went their separate ways — Sara to the transfer office on Minnesota’s campus, and Peter back home.

Before he even got back to Stillwater, his phone rang with an unknown number. It was Indiana’s associate head coach at the time, Glenn Box.

“Hey, this is coach Box from Indiana,” he says. “I’m calling about Sara.”

“Oh, OK,” Peter replies. “Well, wait a second. How do you know, and how are you calling me?”

“I saw her name in the portal, like five minutes ago,” Box says. “And I have your number from AAU.”

Sara’s recruitment to IU was wrapped up in about a week — she went on an official visit to Bloomington, toured the campus, and met the team and coaching staff.

She had other visits lined up and some interest from Kentucky and Duke, but she was enthralled with Indiana from the beginning. So, she became a Hoosier.

"I knew, when I went to the portal, I was going to have to live away from home and away from my family," Sara said. "But at the end of the day, I kind of just wanted to follow my goals as far as my my college basketball career, and that was kind of the main thing. With living away from home, if that's what I have to do to be on a team like I am here in Indiana, that's what I'm going to do."

Becoming an all-around player

One of the main reasons Scalia decided to transfer is because she wanted to become known as more than a 3-point shooter.

The IU senior has taken on more of a ball-handling role in her first year in the starting lineup, especially with the graduation of point guard Grace Berger. Fellow senior Chloe Moore-McNeil primarily took over at the 1, but Scalia has become a sort of secondary ball-handler for the Hoosiers.

“I wanted to definitely improve on other things, other than just being a 3-point shooter,” Sara said. “Definitely, I would say on the defensive end, just kind of focusing on that too, and I just wanted to play for a good team that focuses on everything you need to do to win. And obviously, I've been more facilitator this year, which I like to do.”

Her assist numbers have improved. She averaged 1.9 assists per game in her three years at Minnesota and 1.6 apg last season coming off the bench for Indiana. So far this year, she is averaging 2.7 assists per game, and has nearly already matched her assist total from last season.

“I felt like the biggest thing was just being more comfortable playing under this coaching staff,” Scalia said. “Obviously, it's fun playing with (senior center Mackenzie Holmes) and the pick-and-roll game, for sure. I think a big thing was just being more comfortable. And obviously, I can pass the ball a little bit, so that's fun. I like to pass the ball when they hit a shot.”

So far, Scalia has improved in every way — with ball-handling, 2-point shots and defense.

Her best defensive performance of her final college season also may have been the same night she had her best offensive performance. She hit eight 3-pointers — one off her career-high of she set at Minnesota — for 32 points on Dec. 22 against Bowling Green. In the process, she helped the Hoosiers hold the Falcons to 35 total points.

"Sara Scalia was super, she was special," Moren said after that game. "She scored the ball great, but I thought she was really good defensively. As well as she shot it from beyond the arc, I thought she was as good defensively, with how she was focused and determined and did a great job."

Scalia leads the Hoosiers with 44.1% shooting from beyond the arc this season. She's also second in the Big Ten and 32nd in the country with that mark. But she’s becoming more of an all-around player — something that is crucial for her future plans, which include professional basketball.

“I'm not really sure what it's looking like right now, but I definitely want to play after college,” she said. “I definitely want to play overseas somewhere, hopefully … I’m not ready to put the shoes up just yet.”

And in her two years with the Hoosiers, IU has allowed her to grow into one of the best versions of herself — both as a person and in her game.

“I was pushing her to stay at Minnesota just because you committed here, right?” Peter said. “But she made the right move. Oh, my God, I’m glad she didn’t listen to me.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU women's basketball: How Sara Scalia became one of Big Ten's top shooters