The Wilson twins share a laugh with teammate Thaddesia Southall at Poly’s signing day event

If you sit in the stands at a Poly girls’ basketball game, you’re going to hear a lot of the word “twin.”  If you visit a Poly girls’ basketball practice, you’re going to hear the same—that’s because for four years, two of the team’s most talented, vocal players have been Ashley and Brittany Wilson, twins who so closely resemble each other it became easier for everyone around them to just call them both “twin.”  This Saturday, when Poly takes the Pyramid floor for their ninth straight CIF championship game, Brittany will be the only one of the dynamic duo on the floor, thanks to a season-ending injury to Ashley’s knee—but that doesn’t change what the sisters have meant to the Poly program as a unit.

For their part, the Wilsons do acknowledge they don’t exactly do much to help people tell them apart—they started playing basketball together at MLK Park as kids, they wear jerseys separated by one number (Ashley is five minutes older, so she gets number 12, over her sister’s number 11), and after they graduate this year, both sisters are going to the University of Colorado, where you can bet you’ll soon be hearing shouts of “Good job twin” from the student section.  Ashley is willing to point out that her sister “has a mole on her chin,” if anyone needs a visual cue.

Their connection extends somehow deeper than blood, and basketball, to manifest itself in an almost spiritual way, as is evident when hearing them discuss their injury history at Poly.  “When she’s hurt, I’m hurt,” says Brittany.  “Right now she’s out, so my wrist has been shaky.”

Ashley says that’s not unusual.  “I got my lip busted, then she hurt her knee,” she says.  “Then I broke my hand, and she broke her foot.  It’s weird.”  Brittany says, “As soon as she hurt her knee, everyone started looking at me and saying, ‘be careful.'”

It’s certainly been hard enough on Poly having Ashley (among other key starters this year), down with an injury, without thinking about losing their other twin.  The biggest frustration for Brittany has been the necessary adjustment to her game, with her sister on the bench.  “On defense, I’m used to having her as my help—when I miss an assignment it’s not her now, so I have to rebuild that trust with someone new.”

Poly coach Carl Buggs acknowledges his team has struggled defensively as they try to adjust to the loss of natural chemistry that the twins brought.  He also concurred with his players’ description of their connection as an almost supernatural one.  “When one gets injured, a part of the other one is affected. Sometimes when you have a bond like that, and they’re not with you on the court, if you’re not shooting the ball well, what’s missing is your other half telling you, ‘Come on, let’s go!'”  Ashley has done her best to assume that role for the entire team, evolving into an assistant coach/player in her time on the bench, taking responsibility for the team’s overall effort.

That work ethic doesn’t surprise Buggs, who paid the Wilsons perhaps his highest compliment in saying they’re two of the hardest working players he’s ever coached.  “They may be the only two players, in all the years I’ve been coaching, who always work hard.  I’ve never once had to say ‘work harder,’ not once. They challenge each other, they guard each other in practice, they push each other, and it rubs off.”

That drive and willingness to push each other has not only helped their team, it’s forged a unique bond between them.  That’s why Brittany played a game wearing her sister’s number following Ashley’s knee injury, it’s why they’ve grown so naturally within their team (increasing their production every year, from a combined 7.6 as freshman to 15.3 as seniors), and it’s why they found it so easy to make the mature decision to go to college together, as opposed to trying to find better offers individually.

Having watched former Poly stars (and the twins’ friends) Jasmine Dixon and Candace Nichols go away to college and return home, hobbled by the hardships of moving away without any kind of support system, they knew they didn’t want that to be them.  “The change is so big,” says Ashley, “So why not be with my twin and have somebody to lean on?  It would be hard enough without missing her.”

“They’ve been there for each other their whole lives,” says Buggs.  “So why change it in college?”

Beyond that step, the twins’ paths might—for the first time—take a divergent course.  Both want to play professionally after college, should the opportunity present itself, but Ashley is planning on being a sociology major, while Brittany is set on becoming a crime scene investigator.  It’s easy to tell, though, that even if their lives or careers should end up placing the Wilsons on opposite ends of the world, that these twins will still lean on each other, and be stronger for it.