Zach Smith
Anja Fuchs-Robetin has quickly morphed into a superstar for the Florida Southern women’s
basketball team.
Upon arriving at Florida Southern, Fuchs-Robetin filled in as a fringe bench player. As a sophomore, she became a key role player. Her junior year has been nothing short of her best year yet.
Fuchs-Robetin posted her first career triple-double in a 78-69 win against Rollins on Feb. 7. She finished the night with 13 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
Fuchs-Robetin’s triple-double is only the fourth triple-double in program history, and it is the first triple-double since Kelly Charron’s triple-double during the 1994-1995 season.
Entering the season, FuchsRobetin was one of three key returners alongside Jensen Blassage and Camille Giardina that head coach Betsy Harris was relying on to put up big numbers.
However, despite being one of the team most vital focal points on both ends of the floor, Fuchs-Robetin said she hardly ever feels the pressure.
The six-foot-one forward has quickly become one of FSC’s most lethal shooters over the
course of the season. She is second on the team in scoring with 18.4 points per game behind the sharpshooter Giardina and third in the Sunshine State Conference.
She is also scoring efficiently. Her field goal percentage (54.8 percent) puts her on top in the SSC in field goal percentage. Her free-throw percentage is also second best in the conference at 82.1 percent.
Fuchs-Robetin said she attributes much of improved scoring to smart basketball, previous experience as a guard in Europe and the schemes that put her in the focus offensively.
“A lot of my shots are much closer to the basketball, higher percentage shots, more so than three-pointers,” Fuchs-Robetin said. “Back home I used to play as a shooting guard, and that helped. Coach [Harris] has a lot of trust in me. She wants me to score, and she will try and set me up to score.”
However, the improvements go beyond just scoring the basketball. The Austrian native has improved in almost all other major statistical categories.
Fuchs-Robetin is pulling down 9.7 rebounds per game, blocking 1.2 shots per game, and tallying 1.5 steals per game.
Those kinds of numbers are not the types of numbers Fuchs-Robetin was accustomed to having while playing in Europe. As previously mentioned, Fuchs-Robetin played shooting guard during her time in Europe, and transitioning into a post role was a difficult transition for her to make, but not an impossible transition.
“It took me awhile to adapt because I didn’t expect to be playing post, but it helped to have seniors and juniors like Mariah [Harris] and Danielle [Thomas] push me around,” Fuchs-Robetin said. “I was fine with it [the transition] because I saw that I could get good experience and playing time because we had so many good guards, and so I went with it.”
Fuchs-Robetin’s consistently impressive performances and numbers throughout the season
have earned her six SSC weekly awards, specifically four SSC Defensive Player of the Week
awards.
Fuchs-Robetin and the rest of the women’s basketball team will close out the regular season with a home game against Tampa on Feb. 21.