Making the transition from high school to college ball can be quite the challenge, with a whole new world of obstacles to overcome. Everyone copes with this in different ways, including freshman women’s basketball guard Gabriella Rubin.

Joining the Setters after a successful four years at Moore Catholic High School in Staten Island, NY (winning the state championship four years in a row), Rubin proved to be a critical piece throughout the season.

While at the surface things might have looked rather well, Rubin was just named to the NE-10 All Rookie Team after earning three ECAC Rookie of the Week honors, admitting that things were much more challenging.

“The college level is completely different than High School, I found myself struggling, it wasn’t easy,” said Rubin, an accounting major. “Even when I was doing well, I still struggled. A lot of times it was hard for me to realize that I was even making an impact. I felt like I was messing up a lot of things. But the upper classmen helped me a lot, they pushed me everyday.”

One of the things that Rubin quickly noticed was that “everyone was fast” at the college level. Rubin notes that in high school she was the fastest player around, but now in college it wasn’t as easy.

Knowing this, Rubin acknowledges that she had to focus on more things, which she didn’t realize until she started playing. Rubin’s biggest challenge became her mindset during practice.

She explains that she constantly doubted herself, messing up during practices which made her think that she wasn’t going to do well with the team.

So what changed? Confidence became the key for Rubin, allowing her to change her mindset eventually leading to better results.

“My mindset became that I wasn’t going to play, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t think like that,” said Rubin, who led the team with 38 steals and finished second in the team with 11.1 points. “I had to realize that you’re gonna mess up, its basketball. Once I changed my mindset and became confident things got better. The upperclassmen and my coach helped a lot as well. They pushed me to do better. I’m still not great, but it’s an improvement. It’s easy to lose confidence but its very hard to keep it. There are a lot of ups and downs in basketball and you have to realize that each day is a new day. You need to learn to let go of the bad.”

That proved to be the game-changer for Rubin, who ended up having a pretty impressive rookie season with the Setters. Rubin has had her taste of success however, during her high school years. Rubin notes her high school was always “really good”, but Rubin found herself not always having a big role on the team.

This let doubt creep in as Rubin explained that she would even take herself out of the game when things weren’t going well. But that was all part of the journey that led her to finding her confidence.

Rubin started playing basketball in the third grade, after shooting some hoops at her camp. From there it led Rubin to playing basketball everyday at home over the summer with her two sisters, cultivating the love for the sport while spending some quality sister time.

They played all day, from sun-up till sun-down, and this Rubin credits as the moment when her passion for basketball really grew.

But as it turns out, basketball wasn’t the only sport that caught Rubin’s eye growing up.

“I did cheerleading when I was younger,” Rubin says with a laugh. “I also played soccer, swimming; I did softball for a little bit. The problem with soccer though was that no matter how hard I tried I always found myself picking up the ball with my hands.”

Rubin’s competitive nature can be said to come from her love of sports, but her “get to the point attitude” comes from her father.

She describes her father as someone who doesn’t play games. Owner of a few businesses, Papa Rubin is not one to mess around. This no-nonsense attitude led Rubin to her major-accounting.

A self-proclaimed lover of math, Rubin finds comfort in the numbers and equations.

“With English I always found it so hard because I just want to get to the point,” Rubin said. “Math is just direct, you solve the problem and that’s it. But accounting isn’t like my final destination. I always want to shoot for more. One day I would like to take-over some of my dad’s businesses or maybe own my own business. But for now I’ll just focus on getting my degree.”

Whether on the court or at the office, Rubin seems to have found the key for success.