Tiffany Hayes thinks she got a raw deal.

Not from the University of Connecticut, which received the Winter Haven senior’s rock-solid verbal commitment on March 1.

After all, Hayes, a two-time Florida Class 5A All-Stater, has dreamed of playing for the Huskies — where her favorite basketball player, Diana Taurasi, won national titles before moving on to WNBA stardom — since she was in grade school. In fact, she was so convinced it was the right choice that she committed to UConn even before visiting the school in early October.

No, what bothered Hayes this fall was other news.

“I got a ‘B’ in cooking class,” she explained. “I have to see about that, because I’m a good cook.” .Mother Dorothy Hayes agrees, pointing to Tiffany’s baking skills. “She makes the cakes and helps out a lot at Thanksgiving,” she said.

Of course, Hayes has burned a few, too. Defenders, that is.

While her cooking has been called into question, there’s no doubt that Hayes’ best asset is her ability to shake and bake.

“I just use my speed to get past people and find the basket,” said Hayes, who is working to improve her jump shot accuracy as Winter Haven seeks its third state title in four years.

“She has a quick first step, and that makes her extra tough to defend,” said LeDawn Gibson, Winter Haven’s coach.

Dorothy Hayes, who once coached at Kathleen High in Lakeland, Fla.,  and who has more recently coached her daughter’s AAU teams, says it’s been that way for years.
““Even when she was just 11, she was better than most of the girls on (Kathleen),” said Dorothy Hayes. “She was at every practice and every game. She just grew up around basketball, and she’s loved it from the start.”

Hayes’ game, though, has evolved considerably from those days tagging along with mom and her team. “She’s doing all sorts of things now that I’ve never seen from her,” said Gibson. “For instance, her hangtime has increased. If she drives inside and doesn’t have a shot, she’ll double-pump and finish with the reverse.”

While Hayes’ skill has bloomed, so too has her physical stature. “When she was a freshman, she was 5-8. Now she’s 6-0. So that’s given her even more of an advantage,” said Gibson. It’s also led UConn to consider Hayes’ versatility.

“Because of my height, they’re talking about using me as either a two or a three,” said Hayes. This season, her last as a prep player, she’ll primarily be a shooting guard, but she’s also being counted on to fill in as a backup point guard after the departure of 5-5 guard Amber Smith, who graduated last spring and is now playing for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Distributing the ball is just fine with Hayes, who has dressed with the varsity team since her freshman year. After all, what more can she prove as a scorer? She averaged 18.3 ppg last season while pulling down 10.4 rpg and snagging 6.2 spg.

Aside from her physical assets, though, there’s also a strong mental side to her game.
Gibson says Hayes has a natural “basketball IQ,” an intelligence that carries over to the classroom. “She’s an honor’s student. She just excels at everything,” said Gibson.

Demonstrating that versatility, Hayes ran a sub-24-minute 5K for the Blue Devils’ cross country team, and followed it by being named Winter Haven’s homecoming queen Oct. 1 -- before departing for a long train ride to visit the Huskies’ campus for the first time.

Asked if she plans to continue with cross country in college, Hayes just laughed. “Um, I don’t think so. It was required by coach LeDawn.” She put extra stress on the “required,” as if to acknowledge that she’s not pleased with her coach’s demands. The truth, however, is that Hayes actually starts her cross country runs as part of the second group but ordinarily finishes on the tail of the school’s top runners despite having no prior experience in the sport.