Senior Tiffany Stansbury fell in love at the age of 13. It was not love at first sight, but a love that grew as time went on.

That love is a driving force in Stansbury’s life, now. It is a love for the game of basketball.

“My dad played basketball professionally, and getting to see him play showed me that that’s possibly what I wanted to do,” Stansbury said. “Being around basketball a lot, I just started to gain a love for it.”

Her father, Terence, played in the NBA in Indiana and Seattle. But like her mother, Ingrid Campbell, at first Stansbury ran track.

Stansbury did not start playing basketball until she was 13.

“It just happened. I didn’t even think about basketball until I started playing, and even then I didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “I’ve been running since I was very young because my mom ran track on a collegiate level, and she kind of forced me to run track.”

Campbell ran for Temple and saw Stansbury’s potential.

“I wanted her to run track, so I worked with her a lot on it, and I just gave her support when she changed her mind from track to basketball,” Campbell said.

The support that comes from a family environment was a major factor in Stansbury’s decision to come to N.C. State.

Stansbury began her collegiate basketball career at Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, before transferring to State for her junior year.

“When I was at JuCo, my team, we actually were pretty close,” Stansbury said. “We were family oriented. We really were like a family, and that was one of my reasons for coming here. I heard the team was really close like a family.”

As a transfer coming in to a new team, Stansbury said she did wonder if the family-oriented team dynamic, something she’s experienced on most of the teams she has played for, would continue.

“I was kind of nervous,” Stansbury said. “I didn’t think we were going to be this close, but my first year here we were, so I got used to it pretty fast.”

Stansbury started playing at State the same year as sophomore Khadijah Whittington. The two teammates are also roommates, and Whittington emphasized Stansbury’s role on the team as not only that of a great post player, but also as an encourager.

“She’s great. She’s very encouraging to me. She’s someone I look up to,” Whittington said. “When I get down she’s there for me to talk to, and vice versa.”

Stansbury expressed a mutual admiration for Whittington, saying she and Stansbury’s sister, Amber, are the two people to whom she looks up.

“My littler sister, she’s like a younger version of me,” Stansbury said. “No matter what happens she doesn’t give up.”

Stansbury didn’t give up when she was suspended for the North Carolina game in Chapel Hill on Feb. 2. Although the senior is not allowed to start for the rest of the season, she said the limitation has only made her work harder.

“I pretty much didn’t do what was asked of me, so I had to suffer the consequences,” Stansbury said. “I can’t start for the rest of the season because of that, and I think it’s pretty much making me work harder because I have to earn my way, earn my playing time, whereas before it was just handed to me.”

As one of the top scorers in the ACC, Stansbury leads the team in double-figure scoring, and if she finishes the season shooting 60 percent or better, she will be the fifth person in the history of State to reach the mark.

Stansbury said the suspension has affected her shooting.

“I think it has a little bit, because my playing time is limited,” she said. “But I’m not really worried about how much I score, I just want to win.”

Winning was what Stansbury did at GCCC, only losing two games in the two years she was there. Going from JuCo to the ACC has made Stansbury step up her game, she said.

“Playing here in the ACC, it’s the number one conference in the country,” Stansbury said. “JuCo is very different because [in the ACC], you can play against somebody tough, and any given day somebody can beat you. In JuCo, everybody’s not really good; the talent’s not really there.”

According to Whittington, Stansbury brings a lot to State.

“She’s very athletic,” Whittington said. “She has a lot of athleticism, and I say she’s one of the best posts on the team, if not the best. She’s a great rebounder, and she blocks shots well, so she brings a lot inside playing for us.”

Stansbury gives some credit to her track background for her accomplishments in the post, saying running track has “helped me out as far as getting up and down the floor faster.”

Running track is not the only thing that helps Stansbury when it comes time for a home game. She has a pre-game ritual she practices before every home game.

“Before every single home game, we have a pre-game meal, and after my pre-game meal, I go to my room, I take a shower, and I have to put on street clothes, like dress up, like I’m going to the club or something,” Stansbury said, grinning. “My teammates always clown me for that, but I have to do it, I don’t know why. I have to take a shower and get dressed, and it’s like, I get dressed to just go to the locker room and take my clothes off and put on basketball clothes.”

It’s a tradition that will continue after home games at State, if Stansbury has her way.

“If I get a chance to play in the WNBA, I’ll be happy. If not, I want to play basketball, so I’ll go overseas,” Stansbury said. “Either way I wanna play.”

Her mother said she never thought her daughter’s future would be in basketball.

“I thought she would eventually go back to running, because she was that good at running,” Campbell said. “I never thought she would be at this level in basketball.”

Now, with only one more ACC tournament ahead of her, Stansbury’s collegiate career is almost over.

“It took a long time to get here, but now that it’s here, it’s gone by really fast,” Stansbury said. “In a way I kind of wish it wouldn’t end, but I know everything ends, and I have to move on. Looking back, I made some mistakes, but I think you live and learn.”

The lessons learned have only propelled her forward, Stansbury said.

“A lot of people said I wouldn’t be here right now,” she said. “I’m here. I just feed off everybody who doesn’t have faith in me and said I wouldn’t make it. I like when somebody tells me I’m not going to make it or I can’t do it.”

Though Stansbury has already accomplished much on the basketball court, to teammates like Whittington, that’s not what she will be remembered for.

“We both laugh a lot,” Whittington said. “She’s a nice person, and she’s easy to get along with. She just likes smiling, and she’s goofy. That’s what I think about when I think about her.”