Tasia Jordan is just a baller at heart.
So it makes sense that when her college basketball career ended with Idaho State last spring, she kept working out, finding pickup games and, eventually, landing with a foreign team that will allow her to keep playing the game she loves.
Jordan, the 5-foot-8 wing who led Idaho State in scoring the last two seasons, recently signed with the UCC Glanmire women's basketball team, which competes in the Irish Women's Super League. While a lot of former U.S. college players use foreign opportunities as a way to see the world during a brief basketball interlude, Jordan is not approaching her opportunity that way.
"Now that I'm here, I feel like I want to make it a career," said Jordan, a native of Chicago. "There are no doubts in my mind that I can. The work I've put into it, the improvements I've seen, I just want to keep evolving my game. ... I'm trusting the journey and the work I'm putting in getting me to where I want to be."
The first stop is in Glanmire, a town of about 10,000 people in southern Ireland, along the Glashaboy River in County Cork. Fittingly, the team goes by the nickname the Glanmire Ballers — and that suits Jordan just fine.
The Ballers reached the Irish Women's Super League championship game last spring before losing to the Trinity Meteors. Their coach, Mark Scannell, is a well-known figure in Irish basketball circles, having coached Glanmire to several Super League championships and coached the Irish national women's team over the years.
Each Super League team is allowed two Americans, and Jordan got her chance to make the Glanmire roster through connections that Idaho State coach Seton Sobolewski and her agent had. Jordan also did her own research, talking with two American players who had played in Ireland.
"They both loved it, and I figured I can write my own story here," Jordan said.
Idaho State fans grew to appreciate Jordan's outstanding athleticism, which allowed her to run the court, block shots and finish at the basket in ways that most 5-foot-8 players can't. She averaged 15 points and five rebounds a game in earning first-team All-Big Sky honors last season.
Scannell is expecting similar results from Jordan — and more.
"They are expecting my explosiveness, my quickness on defense — and of course, on offense," Jordan said. "They're also looking for me to improve my 3-point shot (Jordan shot just over 21% from beyond the arc last year), and to get my open mid-ranges. (Scannell) liked that I was all over the court, getting steals, blocks and deflections. They're expecting me to play my game — but also to improve it."
Jordan has already played in two scrimmages with her new teammates in anticipation of the new season. She started both games and had mixed results.
"The first one was a little rocky," she said. "I was just a little more frustrated. But I have to give myself some grace. This was my first time playing with them, and it was just a scrimmage. The second scrimmage, I was able to get to my position to shoot, get to the rim some, get some stops, and I was able to share the ball with my teammates to get some 3-point shots. The second game was a little better."
Scannell is trying Jordan at the point guard, shooting guard and small forward spots. Playing point guard is a relatively new experience for Jordan.
"It's going to take some getting used to," she said. "I need to pay attention to the play calls. But most of the plays are running through me anyway. I come back to the ball."
When Sobolewski first recruited Jordan from a junior college in Iowa, her mother, Beverly Patton, wasn't sure about packing her daughter off to the Wild West of Idaho, some 1,500 miles from their hometown of Chicago. You can more than double that distance from Chicago to Cork, Ireland. So how's Mom dealing with that?
"She's all over the place, honestly," Jordan said. "But she's very excited and more proud than ever. She knows I have a good head on my shoulders, and she knows how well I did in Idaho. I'm going to come over and handle business, be able to have some experiences and come home and have some stories to tell. She's a little bit sad, but we talk every day."
Jordan said her mom, dad and sister are all talking about coming to Ireland to watch her play sometime around her birthday in February.
"But if that doesn't happen, I'm totally OK," Jordan said. "That's no easy flight. And time change is definitely a big thing."
Jordan took advantage of the extra year of eligibility that many former junior college players got from the NCAA to earn two bachelor's degrees from ISU: one in digital marketing and one in university studies. Then she went back to Chicago, where she worked out and played a lot of hoops before the Irish opportunity presented itself.
Having arrived in Ireland on Sept. 13, she said she's adapting well to her new environment.
"The city is beautiful, the people are very nice, very friendly," she said. "The girls on the team are cool. They're trying to teach me Irish. I'm also learning the jig. I've been exploring a little bit and getting used to my teammates. But the time change is still getting to me."
Jordan and Glanmire's other American, Emani Jenkins, who played her college ball at Troy University, will make their Irish debuts Saturday, coincidentally against the same Trinity team that beat Glanmire in the league championship last spring.
That will be just another chapter in what Jordan hopes will be the ongoing story of a long, successful basketball career.
"The plan is I just want to play basketball," she said. "That's been the plan since I was in junior college in Iowa. I'm loving the grind, and appreciating the opportunities I have, and the opportunities I had before to play basketball."