Diamond Henderson’s mother, Crystal, stayed in the family’s silver Ford Expedition reading books with a small flashlight as Diamond played with her father, Chris, and many of her six siblings well past midnight.

The Hendersons didn’t have gym access, so on cool summer nights, the full court in Dupree Park in Woodstock, Georgia was where they played. Crystal would bring snacks and sandwiches for the kids and shout out “Hustle harder” and “Run faster” from the car until she fell asleep in the van.

“By the time they got back in the car, the smell wasn’t too good,” Crystal Henderson said. “But it was just peaceful, it was serene. It was what we did as a family.”

The family’s passion for the game bred Henderson’s, who used the family’s move from Hempstead, New York to Marietta, Georgia to round out her game and develop into a scoring threat.

Henderson was heavily recruited out of high school and again when she graduated from Tennessee Tech in May with one year left of eligibility. She transferred to Syracuse to pursue a master’s degree in instructional design and now only has class one day a week, allowing for plenty of time to work on her game in the gym.

The 5-foot-6 guard averaged 19.7 points per game at Tennessee Tech last year and could potentially fill the scoring void left by Brittney Sykes, the Orange’s leading scorer last year, who is recovering from a torn ACL.

“She’s just a complete offensive player,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said of Henderson. “She’s going to have a role for us that’s going to be very, very important.”

Henderson’s basketball seeds were planted in Hempstead, New York, where she grew up prior to moving to Georgia before entering sixth grade.

Chris Henderson also grew up in Hempstead and the drive-to-the-basket, street-ball style is how he learned the game. That’s what he passed down to his daughter.

Henderson and her younger brother by 18 months, Jade, would take a five-minute walk to Lincoln Park in Hempstead. There, she played with the boys.

“Everybody always wanted Diamond on their team,” Jade Henderson said. “‘Oh, I want Diamond, Diamond, Diamond.’ Everyone knew she was going to be a ball player. Everyone.”

In the parks, it was much more common to attack the hoop. Henderson saw that outside jump shots were unusual and modeled her game with strong dribbling abilities and aggressiveness in the paint, as Crystal Henderson said she would pass up open 3s.

Chris Henderson said that in New York, the objective on offense was to make your defender look “silly.” He only learned the game by playing in the parks and schoolyards.

When he taught his daughter how to play, he told her to try and humiliate her defender with her ball-handling skills. He taught his daughter how to play with street-ball competitiveness. She was determined to win and if she didn’t, she would cry.

Raising a family in Hempstead presented challenges for the family, prompting Chris Henderson to move the family from his home to Georgia.

“It wasn’t like we were pressured into this bad environment and she was scared of getting hurt or shot and killed,” Chris Henderson said, “but that area itself … I knew there was an easier way to get my kids to the right schools. They needed to be successful without any distractions.”

When the family moved, Henderson’s basketball career was at a crossroads. Her coaches no longer taught the New York playground style. Instead, they preached fundamentals.

“She would come home and get frustrated saying ‘Daddy, they told me to do X, Y and Z. I should have been doing such and such and such,’” Chris Henderson said.

“I said, ‘Hey, forget them. Do what you have to do.’”

But ultimately, Henderson bought in. She began blending the two styles together as she grew even more dangerous with the ball.

She began developing a jump shot and could beat a defender regardless of whether they were up close or sagging off.

“Diamond’s greatest quality is she can score,” said Jim Davis, Tennessee Tech’s head coach. “Bottom line. She is a scorer.”

She studied film of Kobe Bryant, particularly his footwork, fade-away jumper and ability to kiss shots off the glass from the post.

During summer workouts entering her freshman year at North Cobb (Georgia) High School, she showed future varsity teammates how to be a leader. It wasn’t with words, but with swift actions, like powering her way to the hoop or dishing the ball to an open teammate.

“In high school she felt she could cross you over and get to the basket,” said John Speeney, then a North Cobb assistant. “It didn’t matter who she was playing.”

After playing three years at North Cobb, Henderson transferred to St. Francis (Georgia) High School for the final semester of her senior year. St. Francis’ head coach, Aisha Kennedy had been Henderson’s AAU coach since 10th grade.

In a playoff game, with a state tournament berth on the line, Henderson was cramping up, but didn’t sub out. During timeouts, Henderson ate mustard and drank pickle juice.

She played the entire game in the double-overtime victory.

“You just got to push through adversity,” Henderson said. “Things are going to happen, you might cramp up, you might tweak an ankle, you might jam a finger but you just have to push through it if you really want to win.”

After falling in love with Tennessee Tech and spurning major-conference programs, Henderson often drew the opposing teams’ best defender and sometimes a double team.

“She averaged 20 points a game and people look at the level,” Hillsman said. “Twenty points in Division I is 20 points.”

When she lived in Hempstead as the oldest of seven siblings, she cooked dinner for her siblings when her parents weren’t home, helped them with homework and made them go to bed on time.

Back in the same state where her career began, Henderson, 23, is the oldest player on the Syracuse roster. Her teammates have already nicknamed her “Grandma.” When someone needs guidance, they often go to Henderson.

And with one year left in college basketball, Henderson is hardly forgetting what her father taught her.

“I love contact,” Henderson said. “I don’t mind getting into the paint, gritting it out and just being more aggressive than my defender.”