It was early in the third quarter Monday when Asia Durr showed on back-to-back possessions some of the reasons she’s considered the best girls basketball player in the state.
On the first play she went high to grab a long rebound and start a break the other way. She dribbled the length of the court and drove toward the basket, showing the ball to the defender before yanking it back and swerving the other way, drawing a foul while laying it up.
On the next play she blocked a shot, caught it in one motion and started another break. This time she drew the defense toward her and passed on the baseline to teammate Jasmine Carter for an easy layup.
Welcome to the world of Asia “The Amazya” Durr, the precocious junior standout at St. Pius.
Coach Kyle Snipes has seen it all. He has watched Durr since she was in the seventh grade. There’s little she does that can catch him off-guard.
“She’s the best player I’ve ever seen,” said St. Pius athletic director Mark Kelly, who coached basketball at the school for more than a decade. “I don’t know if she’s as good an athlete as Maya Moore, but I think she’s a better player.”
Being compared with Moore may seem crazy, but it has become common fodder. Moore, who played at Collins Hill, went on to be an All-American at Connecticut and now stars in the WNBA. But more and more Durr finds herself compared with players such as Moore and friend Diamond DeShields, a former Norcross star currently at North Carolina.
“I try not to make those comparisons, but she’s really talented,” Snipes said. “I don’t have the vocabulary to all the superlatives on her.”
On Tuesday against McNair, Durr scored 25 points and St. Pius rolled to a 56-18 win. It was the 57th consecutive region win for the No. 2-ranked Golden Lions, now 21-3. Durr scored 33 points and had 12 rebounds against Decatur on Monday.
She has averaged 24 points and 6.5 rebounds and has scored 1,629 points in her career.
Moore remains unfazed by all the attention. She’s well-spoken, genial and level-headed. Her coaches and teammates gush about how nice she is, and she continues to have fun playing basketball.
“The game of basketball is fun itself,” she said. “I started playing when I was 3 and just stuck with the game and kept going.”
She works hard at it, too. She heads to the gym each day and shoots, with her father rebounding and feeding her the ball. Durr was particularly interested in improving her jumper, especially the 3-pointer. Snipes said the diligence has helped Durr push her success rate on 3-pointers past 40 percent.
“I’ve made some progress,” she said with a smile.
Add modesty to her traits, too. What she labeled “progress” helped turn the momentum against Decatur in Monday’s important Region 6-AAA game. She swished back-to-back 3-pointers in the first quarter to turn the tide in the favor of St. Pius.
“That was the ballgame,” said DeKalb County athletic director Carter Wilson, a former Decatur coach. “I’d say she’s a pretty fair country basketball player.”
