Keri Pryor looks down at her jersey from time to time.

A reminder, in the form of her uniform number -- a big zero -- is stitched into the tank top of the Duquesne women's basketball senior.

"I was a stereotype when I got pregnant, like I was done, I was over, I was a zero," Pryor said. "Everybody thought I'd never amount to anything again. When I was a freshman here, I was No. 5, I wore No. 5. I got pregnant and I said, 'When I come back, I'm going to wear zero, because I'm not going to allow myself to be that zero.' "

Far from it. Instead, Pryor, 22, is a zero in a basketball score book's definition alone.

She's a single mother of the cutest 2-year-old pigtailed daughter you'd ever come across, rambunctious little Sadaya Jones.

She's a full-time student who will graduate in May with an integrated marketing degree.

She leads a 10-5 Duquesne team in scoring (12.9 points per game), steals (33) and minutes (28.9 per game).

And perhaps most impressive, she's a masterful juggler of all the responsibility that comes with a whirlwind existence.

"That's the story," Duquesne coach Suzie McConnell-Serio said. "She handles everything unbelievably and takes it all in stride. She is tremendous with all she does. I can't say enough about how she's able to do all that she does."

There was a time, however, when Pryor didn't know how all of this was going to play out, when she was playing basketball -- starring, in a sense, as a freshman the first 10 games under former coach Dan Durkin -- and then was shrouded in mystery, gone from the floor at Duquesne early in the 2006-07 season.

"A lot of people thought I was sick or had an injury," Pryor said. "There were some people who thought I was academically ineligible, too." She also heard a rumor that she had mononucleosis.

The craziest one that filtered back to her, though, as the on-campus rumor mill worked overtime in an attempt to crack the case of her absence?

"I swear, I heard this one thing that I got involved in this robbery situation," Pryor said laughing. "I was like, 'Where did that rumor come from?' "

But then the rumors all went away, because reality and nature couldn't be ignored -- her midsection was starting to expand.

"And I guess it wasn't a secret anymore," Pryor said. "I guess it had to come out then. I guess people really knew what was going on."

What happened was Sadaya was born July 31, 2007, to Pryor -- a Morgantown, W.Va. native -- and Abraham Jones, a former West Virginia University football player who now lives in Pittsburgh. He lives apart from Pryor but remains prominent in Sadaya's life.

"What am I going to do next? That was what I thought about those days, right after I had her," said Pryor, who lives off-campus with Sadaya. "I was sitting there, just going to myself, 'What am I going to do?'

"My sophomore year, there were a lot of adjustments. I had to grow up quick. I wasn't like some of the other college kids who were able to live the college life and go out and party. I was at home, being a mom."

She was also getting accustomed to a new coach -- McConnell-Serio -- and getting her body back into shape for basketball.

McConnell-Serio was hired in April 2007, and Pryor gave birth in July. There might not have been a better match to mentor someone from the delivery room back to the basketball gym.

McConnell-Serio is the mother of four children.

Twice she got herself in shape just after a pregnancy, once playing in the Olympics and another time in the WNBA.

"Being in a similar situation helped me help her, definitely," McConnell-Serio said. "But I didn't have the schoolwork, either, remember that. There was that part of it for her that I wasn't faced with."

Now though, it all has become routine for Pryor, a structured template unimaginable in those early days.

Pryor takes Sadaya to day care near her Uptown apartment when she goes to class. Pryor gets a big hand from her parents -- Eric and Bertha Pryor -- when Duquesne goes on road trips: The tot either goes to Morgantown or her grandparents come to Pittsburgh while Pryor goes off to play the likes of St. Bonaventure, Richmond or Fordham for a few days. Sadaya's father also is there, serving as a huge assist.

"That all helps," Pryor said. "I have had a lot of support from everyone from the very first day all of this happened. Even being at a Catholic school, where maybe they don't want something like this to happen, the support system was great.

"From the athletic director [Greg Amodio] to the deans, their main concern was that I finish school. There was a situation and they supported me, and I was never worried. I got a lot of support."

That kind of support was different from what she got at a recent home game.

During a timeout, Pryor and her teammates walked to the bench as Sadaya was standing a few rows up with family members.

A little voice pierced through the others in the Palumbo Center -- "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," the voice cried out.

"What could I do?" McConnell-Serio said. "I just looked up and said, 'Your Mommy is a little busy right now.' "

If there ever was a moment that served to define Keri Pryor's life at Duquesne, that was it: Mommy is, seemingly, always busy.

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