Skylar Forbes’s somersaulting during games is not by accident — it’s in her nature.
The sophomore forward’s basketball career started later than others. Forbes was balancing on beams and jumping through the air before she grew and picked up a basketball in her first year of high school.
“I was a gymnast from ages four to 13 or 14,” Forbes said. “I stuck with it, got a little too tall, so I had to quit.”
Yet, her rapid development since committing to play at Marquette has her on track to being a surefire All-Big East nod after this season.
In Marquette head coach Cara Consuegra’s opinion, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“Sky was a gymnast for a long time, which is hard to believe because she’s 6-3, and then she grew and became a basketball player,” Consuegra said. “For that reason, look at her build, look at her skillset, she’s just going to keep getting better.”
Forbes’ consistent improvement is paying dividends on the floor after picking up nearly 13 minutes per game more this season. She’s averaging 10.9 points and two more rebounds per game more than she did in her first season in the blue and gold and is the leading shot-blocker in the conference, averaging 1.7 per contest.
She’s more than doubled her 3-point percentage from last season, shooting 32.8 percent compared to 15 percent.
“I didn’t really shoot that much, and I don’t think I had enough confidence to shoot the ball the way I’m doing now,” Forbes said.
That confidence has been the catalyst to six 20-point performances this season, including a new career-high of 26 points in an 82-72 victory over DePaul at the Al McGuire Center on Feb. 15, where she made three triples.
Consuegra said she knows Forbes wants to live on the perimeter and shoot threes, but she believes Forbes can continue to grow on her interior offense.
“We’ve tried to get her to embrace she’s 6-3, she’s stronger than she looks,” Consuegra said. “She’s done a really good job embracing that physicality, being willing to get down on the block and put pressure on a defense that way, then she can step out to the perimeter and create from there.”
Forbes works with Chaz Franklin, the team’s director of player development who joined the team this season from the Chicago Sky, on embracing her post potential.
“We’ve been working on her playing more with her back to the basket,” Franklin said. “She’s been getting a lot of double teams as we go into Big East play, so learning how to read double teams and how to pivot away and find her open shooters on the backside and really use her strength to overpower her defenders.”
Forbes said she has tapped into her gymnast background when it comes to her interior offense.
“We’ve been working on my footwork and being able to maneuver through people,” Forbes said.
Her stronger presence inside is already paying off. In her first seven games of conference play, Forbes averaged 4.3 turnovers per game, and in her last seven, she’s cut that number down to 2.3 turnovers per contest. In turn, her assist to turnover ratio was 0.45 over the first seven games, and in the last seven, it’s 1.2.
“She’s had some tough moments where we’ve held her to a really high standard,” Consuegra said. “Every time, she’s responded and has come out on the other side a better player. She’s very accountable and she wants to be good.”
Forbes’s intangibles and shooting ability have set her up to play a stretch-four role as a professional, and Franklin said she sees that translating into the next level.
“She’s going to be a professional somewhere if she continues to develop in the way she’s developing right now,” Franklin said. “The sky’s the limit.”
No pun intended when talking about Marquette’s leading scorer.
This story was written by Trevor Hilson. He can be reached at trevor.hilson@marquette.edu or @hilsontrevor on Twitter/X.
