SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

Nicci Moats was once a scholarship player at Tennessee, but she says she's happier now playing near home.

Nicci Moats is back on the court -- and back in love with basketball.

After stints at Tennessee and James Madison, followed by a year out of school, the former Lord Botetourt star is reviving her basketball career at Roanoke College.

The lower-profile world of NCAA Division III is a big change for someone who was once on scholarship at one of the flagship programs in women's basketball. But Moats couldn't be happier.

"Being at Tennessee and JMU, it kind of took the joy out of playing basketball for me. I feel like now I'm more in a comfortable situation," Moats said at the Bast Center after a recent practice.

"I love it. I feel like I'm back in high school. I enjoyed playing it in high school so much -- not dreading conditioning, not dreading coming to practice. Sometimes at JMU and Tennessee, it was kind of like a chore. Here it's just fun. I feel like I can be myself."

When the Maroons open their season Nov. 20 at St. Mary's (Md.), it will be Moats' first game since Dec. 22, 2006 -- back before she took a medical leave of absence from the Lady Vols. Before she transferred to JMU. Before her year coaching the Roanoke Catholic junior varsity.

"Mentally and physically and emotionally, I think I'm ready to be back, and I enjoy playing basketball again," Moats said.

Moats hasn't played a full season since 2004-05, when she was a Lord Botetourt junior. But she could make a big impact for the Maroons, who have been picked to win the ODAC in the coaches' preseason poll.

After Katrina Williams transferred from Virginia Tech to Roanoke in 2000, she made the All-ODAC second team as a sophomore, the first team as a junior and was voted player of the year as a senior.

And Williams was a guard. Moats is a 6-foot-2 center who just turned 22 years old.

"People, their expectations are really going to be very high, just because it's Nicci and she played at Tennessee," Maroons coach Susan Dunagan said. "But the thing is, she's only human, and we've just got to get her back in basketball shape."

Off to Knoxville

Moats was an All-Group AA pick as a junior, when she led Lord Botetourt to the 2005 Group AA final.

She orally committed to Tennessee coach Pat Summitt in September of her senior year. But that December, she suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, ending her prep career.

Her rehab went well enough that she was able to suit up for the Lady Vols as a freshman forward.

But she played in only nine games, scoring a total of seven points in 38 minutes.

She took a leave of absence from the team for personal reasons in early January of her freshman year. She rejoined the squad but took a medical leave from the team in late January, and this time it lasted the rest of the season.

Her parents said at the time that Moats had been too weak to play in games or practice since before Christmas because of a weak immune system. She kept getting sick.

She remained in school at UT. In April of that year, she met with Summitt and opted to transfer. She announced in a UT news release that it had been "personally a difficult year" for her.

Moats said last week that there was no off-court incident that made her want to leave. She said she left because she and her father were suffering "a lot of health issues."

"I'm really close with my dad and so I kind of wanted to just be close to home, kind of regroup, ... try to get healthy," she said. "I thought I could do that at JMU.

"I didn't think I needed to tell people about what was going on with my dad. He was sick and he really didn't want people knowing -- but he's a lot better now.

"The glitz and glamour is not all it's cracked up to be. My personal well-being and my father's is 10 times more important to me than basketball."

The Lady Vols won the 2007 NCAA championship. Moats got a ring, just like the rest of the team.

"Coach Summitt, she was a great coach," Moats said. "I learned a lot from her. She was so sweet -- she knew what was going on with me being sick.

"I had to take care of my body physically, mentally, and if I didn't do that, I wouldn't be the player that Coach Summitt wanted me to be. ... I was still a part of the team. I was just not physically able to go through practice."

She moved on to JMU, and practiced with the Dukes while sitting out the 2007-08 season under Division I transfer rules. But she left after that school year.

"There was a couple deaths in the family, a lot of sickness," she said. "It was just kind of blah for me up there. The negative from Tennessee kind of went over to JMU.

"I should've taken a year off between Tennessee and JMU instead of going directly into another major Division I program. I needed that time off.

"This last year gave me time to regroup, ... rest my body."

Back in uniform

Moats spent last season as an assistant varsity coach and head JV coach at Roanoke Catholic. Doing drills with the players and seeing their joy made her want to play again, be part of a team again.

"Coaching kind of brought that love out for basketball again," she said.

Because Moats was not in school last season, she would have had to sit out this season if she transferred to a Division I school. She would have then had two more years of eligibility, assuming the NCAA granted her a medical redshirt.

But Moats wasn't interested in another Division I school. She wanted to play "somewhere smaller." Roanoke was the only school she considered.

"It was an easy transition for me to come here," said Moats, who is living at home.

Division III has different eligibility rules than Division I. So not only can Moats play this season, but in Division III she is only a sophomore in terms of eligibility.

Moats is on track to graduate in the spring of 2011, though, so she doesn't know if she will stick around for the 2011-12 season.

She spent last year working for an insurance company, so she paid for this semester's tuition herself.

Moats is slowly starting to get back in shape after a year of physical inactivity. She lost 17 pounds this fall, and wants to lose 10-15 more so she can quickly run down the court. She doesn't want to get all the way back to 160 pounds like she was in high school, though, so she can be tough to move around in the paint.

"She is rusty," Dunagan said.

Does Moats ever wonder how things might have turned out differently at Tennessee?

"I miss sometimes being down there, but ... I'm at such a positive place in my life right now, I don't want to beat myself up," she said.

"I'm excited to be playing again."