The CMS-ence of Gloria Bates

Over the last four years, Gloria Bates has learned a lot about chemistry, both as part of a close-knit CMS women's basketball program that has used its on-court chemistry to win the SCIAC regular season league title in each of her last three years, and as a biochemistry major at Claremont McKenna.

The Athena team chemistry will be on display at Roberts Pavilion this week, which is a big week for Bates and her class. The seniors play their final regular season Sixth Street Rivalry game tomorrow night against Pomona-Pitzer (8:30 p.m.) and then they have their Senior Day on Saturday before facing Caltech at 7 p.m.

The academic side of Bates' chemistry experience has seen her develop a particular interest in analyzing data related to food digestion. She has served internships in quality assurance at two local dairy labs during her college career, gathering and testing samples with sophisticated laboratory machinery.

Bates has also taken full advantage of the five-college consortium set-up to broaden her education beyond chemistry as well. She has a computer science minor, taking courses at Harvey Mudd which she has frequently utilized in her data analytics. And one of her favorite courses is one that has no lab hours at all.

"One of the classes that I am taking this semester that is really interesting for me is taught by Dr. Phyllis Jackson over at Pomona; it's the Black Women, Feminism and the Visual Arts class," she said. "Being pushed to think in ways outside of what we're institutionally and systematically taught has been really helpful for me in applications as I move forward in my career."

Bates came to Claremont McKenna after graduating from Lutheran High School in Anaheim with the highest GPA in the school's history. She has been a SCIAC All-Academic Team selection while balancing the challenges of a robust curriculum built around lab sciences with playing a sport at a high level, but she considers that simply part of the culture that she's around every day.

"When I was a first-year, I was inspired by Athenas purely because of their work ethic and their ability to push themselves in every sphere of their lives," she said. "And now that I'm a senior, I've learned to hold myself accountable to that as well and continually push myself to new heights."

The Athenas have reached plenty of heights during her career, winning 80 games over the last four years and losing only 22. She has had a key role in that success, both as a defensive standout (a three-time SCIAC Defensive Player of the Week last year) and as a key offensive weapon in late-clock situations, due to her ability to create off the dribble.

As a team, CMS has won the last three SCIAC regular season championships, but hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament since her first season, when it defeated Chapman 65-54 in the SCIAC finals and went on to defeat Texas-Dallas in the opening round. The last two years have seen the Athenas come up just short in down-to-the-wire battles in the conference championship and miss out on at-large bids despite a combined 47-7 record.

Although this year's team dealt with some injuries and started slow in conference play, they've been coming on strong with four straight wins heading into this week's big slate of home games, avenging two of their losses already on the road (Chapman, Whittier). Bates hopes to ride that momentum and bookend her career with another trip to the postseason.

"We're the last class that was able to go to the NCAA Tournament," Bates said. "I definitely want to do one last dance, and I think this is the team to do it with."

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