Everything’s Going to be O(KK)

Little Josh Gonzales puckered up his 1-year-old lips and turned his attention to his slightly older cousin Katelyn Babin.

“KK, KK,” he would often shout, struggling to fully pronounce the somewhat, but not overly complex name of his best friend at the time and closest cousin.

It stuck.

A 2-year-old Katelyn Babin quickly became KK Babin.

One of the Nicholls State and the Southland Conference’s best young players was officially born.

“There’s really nothing more to it than that,” Babin said with a laugh. “My cousin just couldn’t say my name so it just got stuck. Everyone started saying it and it spread and my real name just doesn’t even exist anymore. I’ve been KK forever now. Ever since I can remember now.”

Babin wasn’t born with a basketball in her hands, but the sport has been with her just as long as her shortened name.

She said she started playing when she was 3-years-old and remembers dribbling basketballs up and down the halls and inside and outside of her parents’ Gonzales home.

“My parents were teaching me how to dribble, teaching me how to shoot,” Babin said. “So I started at a really, really young age. I was practically born with the ball in my hands.”

Those early dribbling drills were probably just what the doctor ordered.

Where Babin has been blessed with a lifelong work ethic, she wasn’t blessed with size, standing just slightly taller than her two-letter name.

“I’ve been a point guard my whole life,” the 5-foot-4-inch player said. “I was always the shortest one on the team, so that’s sort of expected, but I grew up being that point guard trying to run the show.”

The show Babin runs usually turns into a winner pretty quickly.

From her early age, Babin progressed to a budding point guard at St. Michael the Archangel High School in Gonzales.

She spearheaded the Warriors’ program for four years, starting from day one with the team.

“I came in and I knew I didn’t have time to be or play like a freshman,” she said. “I just did the best I could to keep things going for my team.”

She did a pretty fair job.

Along the way, Babin eventually collected three First-Team All-District honors.

Oh yeah, she won two state championships, too, calmly sinking buzzer beaters in both games to seal the win for her team.

It was from those heroics that she met Nicholls coach Dobee Plaisance.

After all, Plaisance had a front row seat to a few of Babin’s most epic performances, as she led St. Michael’s past Vandebilt Catholic in one of those state championship games – the same team anchored by Plaisance’s daughter, Theresa.

It was during that time during Babin’s junior season that Plaisance had formally accepted the job as the Colonels women’s basketball coach.

From day one, she had one goal in mind: bringing Babin to the program.

“I took this job with the anticipation of [her] having to be a must-sign,” Plaisance said.

She got her wish.

Babin completed her prep career and eventually signed with Nicholls after fielding interest from, “just about everyone.”

She said she committed to play for the Colonels because of the belief she had in her coach’s vision for the future.

“I could have gone pretty much anywhere, but Dobee convinced me of the dream,” Babin said. “She said, ‘We’re going to try and turn this program around and try and make a difference,’ and that’s exactly what I wanted to do – to make an impact on the people here, the players and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. To just turn things around.”

So far, Babin’s transition is going pretty smoothly.

In her first year with the team, she is averaging 13 points, four assists and three rebounds per game for the Colonels, ranking among the top in the team in all three categories.

But above all else, she provides toughness.

Plaisance and her teammates tout she’s always the first person diving for a loose ball or doing whatever dirty work needed to win.

“She’s pretty tough,” senior guard Ricshanda Bickham said. “She can take whatever anyone’s dishing out to her.”

Babin said she learned from her early days that she needed to take that white-collar mentality to the court to succeed in a “big woman’s game.”

“When you don’t have height, you can’t really jump that high, you’ve got to do something,” she said. “For me, I figured out a long time ago, you’ve got to have heart. I’ve always had this drive and just this desire to go all-out. Because you just never know when you won’t have another day.”

For Nicholls, there’s still three more years to go.

Who knows?

Maybe another run of conference titles is in the cards for Babin.

It wouldn’t surprise Plaisance.

That’s why she recruited Babin in the first place, after winning several championships at her prior gig at Loyola.

She knows everything’s going to be “OK” with “KK” at the helm.

Maybe little Josh was onto something.

“All my championship teams I’ve had a point guard that it’s like before I could get it out, she was already doing it,” Plaisance said. “And the whole time watching her, and I’ve been watching her forever, … she’s been that player.”

Nicholls freshman guard KK Babin defends LSU guard Latear Eason during this season’s matchup in Thibodaux. Babin has a key contributor for the Colonels this year, ranking among the team leaders in points, rebounds and assists per game. CASEY GISCLAIR