Six weeks ago, Alex Anderson was wrapping up her stellar career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a trip to Connecticut for the first round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Now the two-time Southern Conference player of the year is in San Antonio, where she will make her professional debut, of sorts, tonight when her new team, the Silver Stars, faces the Houston Comets in a preseason game.

“I’m excited, but nervous at the same time,” Anderson said Wednesday.

Anderson, the first UTC women’s basketball player to be picked in the WNBA draft, is wrapping up her second week of training camp with the Silver Stars. Life after college requires all kinds of adjustments for anyone, and for Anderson they’re coming on and off the court.

“Everything’s a lot different,” she said. “It’s just not basketball — it’s a business, too. You have to compete and do your job, because that’s what it is for all of us, our job.

“Here you’re in charge of eating healthy, getting to practice on time, making sure you’re properly rested — you have to take care of everything like that because there’s nobody behind you to do it. You’ve got to do it on your own.”

If Anderson, the 39th overall pick in the draft, is going to make the San Antonio roster, she knows she’s going to have to do it on her own, as well. Anderson was the big fish in the waters of the SoCon the past two seasons, but that’s no longer the case.

“The level of competition is really, really high; it’s a lot tougher,” she said. “Everybody here was the best player on their team.”

Anderson was a post player in college — a speedy, agile and athletic post player, but one nonetheless — however being 6-foot-1 with a lean frame isn’t going to cut it on the block in the WNBA. So she’s been moved to the wing position where, ideally, she can play both inside and out.

Defensively, Anderson said she’s doing well following the switch, but on offense the position requires some different skills that she didn’t have to utilize often will winning conference titles with the Lady Mocs — namely ball-handling.

“That’s definitely one area where I’m having to do a lot of work,” she said. “I feel like I can make the transition to the 3 (wing), but it’s going to take a little time to get used to it. But I definitely feel like I’m making progress.”

Whether that progress leads to a spot on the roster when the season starts in a couple of weeks remains to be seen. Anderson, who still has a couple of classes left to complete to earn her degree, said she will play internationally if she doesn’t make the team. But not before coming back to UTC and finishing school.

She said she’s getting a different kind of education during training camp, one that she hopes will lead to big things down the road.

“If I make the team or if I don’t make the team, this experience has really helped me because I’ve learned so much in the short time I’ve been here,” she said. “Playing against this kind of competition and working with the coaches, it’s already making me a better player.”

One she hopes is just beginning her WNBA journey.

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