PressBox recently chatted with Mount St. Mary’s women’s basketball senior Jo Raflo about who she looked up to early in her college career, her goals for after hoops and more. The 5-foot-11 guard averaged 12.2 points and 3.3 rebounds for the Mountaineers in 2023-24. Raflo is a native of Gainesville, Va., and graduate of Osbourn Park High School.
PressBox: How did you first become interested in basketball?
Jo Raflo: I first became interested in basketball when my sister, [Delaney], started playing. I was 7, she was 8. I wanted to do anything that she did. I actually hated it at first. I wanted to play soccer, but then as time went on I wanted to do whatever she was doing, so I stuck with it. Once I was 9, I really just started to love it. I ended up sticking with it all the way through.
PB: Who was the biggest influence on your game growing up? Was it your sister?
JR: Probably. I wanted to be like her. Growing up, I was really big on UConn women’s basketball. I loved Moriah Jefferson and Katie Lou Samuelson. Once I got a little bit older, I watched [Samuelson] a lot. Those two definitely were my favorite players.
PB: Why did originally go to Presbyterian?
JR: COVID did a lot to my recruitment process. Coaches weren’t able to watch me play my senior summer because I was not playing AAU, so it definitely had an impact on how I was being recruited. Presbyterian was first Division I offer, so I just took it. Probably two weeks after I got the offer, I visited and committed immediately. I just took the first opportunity I got.
PB: Why did you choose to go to the Mount?
JR: I chose to go to the Mount because I had a great relationship with my coach, Antoine White, since I was 15, 16. He started recruiting me a very long time ago. … After transferring, [White] contacted me. He had recently gotten the head coaching job here. I knew he cared about my future and believed in me. I’m only an hour and a half from home, so that was a huge plus for me. It’s a great community, great environment, so that was probably the biggest reason I came here.
PB: What’s your favorite memory from your time at the Mount so far?
JR: Probably our MAAC playoff win that we got my sophomore year here [against Canisius]. It was the first year in a new conference, so it was really exciting for us to get that first playoff win. We played really well in that game, so it was just a good day to be playing with my teammates.
PB: You made 67 threes a season ago. How did that become a big part of your game?
JR: I was very short growing up. I hit a huge growth spurt in high school, but prior to that growth spurt I was 5-2, 5-3 going into high school. My dad told me, “If you want to be on the court, you have to be able to shoot.” I really put my head down and worked on shooting. Over time, the results started to show. That’s been one of the biggest facets of my game throughout college. I definitely was a very high volume 3-point shooter last year, so that’s definitely a huge part of my game.
PB: What’s your favorite thing about the Mount?
JR: My favorite thing about the Mount is the people. This is a really small school and a really tight-knit community. There’s people in your corner all over the campus. We get support from our professors, other teams and just regular students here, so it’s really nice knowing that you have the support of so many people when there’s not that many people here. I feel like you wouldn’t be able to get that same amount of genuine support at a bigger school.
PB: Who’s your best friend on the team and what’s a story that underscores your friendship?
JR: My best friend on the team is Tessa Engelman. Me and Tess met on her visit. I was a sophomore at the time. Tess is extremely younger than me. She’s 18. I’m 21. At first I was like, “Oh, this really young freshman coming in, I’m a junior, she’s so much younger than me.” And then we ended up connecting way more than I thought we would. We’re extremely similar in so many ways. The story that probably best describes it is she’s so much younger than me but she took me to my very first concert for her birthday. She took me to see Drake [at Penn State]. That was honestly probably my best memory with her.
PB: Who did you look up to early in your college career?
JR: Jade Compton. She was a fifth-year senior when I was at Presbyterian. She just worked so hard, and I learned so much from her work ethic and her leadership. She plays professionally now, so I still look up to her to this day. From the Mount would be Aryna Taylor with the leadership. She led everybody with love and positivity that she brought to the gym. I try to model the way I lead the team now after her. She was just that big sister energy that you want to have on the court with you.
PB: What advice would you give to younger players who are looking to get recruited?
JR: The advice I would give to younger players is go where they love you. Don’t go to the place that you love, go where the people love you.
PB: What are your goals for after basketball, whenever it ends?
JR: Right now, I am considering playing professionally, just seeing the people before me who have gone overseas and played professionally like Jade Compton and my teammate from the Mount, Natalie Villaflor. Seeing them play professionally, that kind of lit a spark in me. It motivated me to want to try to do that. But beyond that, I am very interested in sideline reporting and sports broadcasting. I’ve been working on that here at the Mount. I would love to be a sideline reporter someday.
PB: Do you have any experience in that regard yet?
JR: Yeah. It’s an ESPN+ program here at the school. We have a producer that is hired by the school, but then the rest of it is all student participation, so we have students doing camera, audio, graphics, all that stuff. I originally worked as replay for live events. Over time, I expressed my interest in doing sideline reporting. I started doing sideline reporting for the Mount last October. We’re coming up on a year now of me doing that. It’s basically an internship with the school and me gaining experience doing sideline reporting.
Photo Credit: Tyler Kraft