CIAA: Former Vincent Pallotti star Makayla Waleed plays key role in Winston-Salem turnaround

In 2020, Makayla Waleed was a junior guard for St. Vincent Pallotti High School, leading her squad to a 21-6 record. She lost an IAAAM title chance at the hands of Angel Reese and Saint Frances Academy.

Six years later, Waleed has returned to Maryland with another chance at a championship, this time playing for a Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association title with Winston-Salem State.

It is Waleed’s lone year in the CIAA after playing three seasons with Temple, appearing in 49 games, and missing last season. Now, playing in front of friends and family at CFG Bank Arena, roughly 45 minutes from her hometown of Upper Marlboro and 25 minutes from Pallotti, Waleed has plenty of home-state support flooding in for her college basketball swan song.

“My family is extremely excited to come out and get to yell and shout and get excited at the games again,” Waleed said before the tournament. “I didn’t get to play a lot of games near home while at Temple, so this is a full-circle moment for me.”

Basketball fans who have followed the CIAA tournament since it came to Baltimore are not accustomed to seeing Winston-Salem as a viable threat. The Rams went 5-27 in the past two years in CIAA play, and they have not made the semifinals at the CIAA tournament since 2020, when the event was held in North Carolina.

However, the transfer portal has brought a new era to college sports, and the Rams have taken advantage, winning the CIAA regular-season title with a 14-2 record and ranking inside the Division II top 20 in the coaches poll.

They continued their remarkable turnaround and dominated Bluefield State in their quarterfinal, 71-49, on Wednesday afternoon. Entering the year, the Rams hadn’t won a conference game by double digits since Feb. 18, 2023. This year, they did it 12 times in the regular season and made it 13 Wednesday.

First-year head coach Tierra Terry, the former Virginia Union head coach, sold her vision to a host of transfer recruits, including Waleed. Terry recruited Waleed while at William & Mary as an assistant, and the two remained in touch after Waleed chose Temple.

Years later Terry had another shot at recruiting Waleed, and this time she won the battle.

“[Terry] told me the pieces she was bringing in, the players that were staying,” Waleed said. “I bought in. … It was a pretty easy sell.”

Waleed, one of three transfers to average over 10 points per game, immediately became a key piece in the Rams’ remarkable turnaround. She ranked 12th in the CIAA in scoring and fifth in steals in the regular season.

“My defense, that leads into offense,” Waleed said. “I just try to stay consistent with that, and hopefully my team feeds off of the energy I’m giving.”

Waleed has also become an off-the-court leader for the Rams, a pivotal role in Terry’s locker room.

“At Temple, I learned so much about myself on and off the court,” Waleed said. “The shift coming here has been more in a leadership role, being more vocal about certain things, being that veteran out on the court.”

Of Terry’s expectations, Waleed said: “It’s just a culture of work. You’re not going to always score 30 points, so how else can you contribute? That’s the main thing she preaches — come in, work hard and everything else will follow.”

A quick look at Waleed’s game log shows her on-court play exemplifies that unselfish attitude. The senior has scored 18-plus points on six occasions, including a 19-point, 12-rebound double-double against two-time defending champion Fayetteville State.

But the scoring output hasn’t always defined Waleed’s impact on the game. In one two-game stretch this season, she shot 15% from the field, scoring just nine points. However, Waleed made up for it with 14 rebounds, five assists and three steals across those two contests, both Winston-Salem victories.

And, in her first of what she hopes is three games at CFG, Waleed showed out. Although she came off the bench in this contest, Waleed led the Rams in scoring (19 points) and minutes (30). She had six rebounds and two steals, an all-around performance that earned her MVP of the game.

“It means a lot, coming back home, getting to play in Maryland again,” Waleed said.

The Rams play Friday afternoon in the semifinals against Claflin.