Tia Poulakidas and Neuqua Valley are works in progress. That makes them dangerous. ‘She’ll be pretty close to unstoppable.’

There was a time when Neuqua Valley center Tia Poulakidas was a one-dimensional player.

She was the girl who got the ball in the post and tried to score inside.

Those days are gone.

“I’ve really been working on my inside-outside game,” Poulakidas said. “I’ve been a post forward pretty much my whole basketball career, so I’ve always had those skills. But now I’m working on my driving game and pulling up for a three, stuff like that.”

The work is beginning to pay off for the 6-foot-1 senior, whose burgeoning skills have fueled an early season renaissance by the Wildcats.

“Tia’s leadership is second to none,” junior guard Caitlin Washington said. “We really feed off her energy. She’s just an energy player, and her leadership always keeps us in check. She’s getting into us when we’re not playing our best.”

The Wildcats (4-3) are playing better than some expected. They ended Naperville North’s 38-game DuPage Valley Conference winning streak with a 42-41 upset on Thursday, took defending Class 3A state champion Carmel to the wire before losing 39-37 at the Chicagoland Invitational Showcase at Fremd on Saturday and narrowly lost 50-48 to Plainfield East on Monday.

The game against Carmel (7-1) was indicative of the Rochester-bound Poulakidas’ progress. She didn’t attempt a shot until the final possession of the first half, when she sank a 17-foot jumper to cut Carmel’s lead to 16-13.

The Corsairs, who got a combined 33 points and 16 rebounds from 6-4 Michigan State recruit Jordan Wood and 6-1 Wisconsin-Whitewater commit Mia Gillis, tried to pull away in the second half. But Poulakidas twice answered with baskets, one a short pullup jumper and the other a strong post move.

“It’s just a confidence thing with her,” Neuqua Valley coach Mike Williams said. “She’s starting to figure out how to get a little bit more physical, a little bit more aggressive.

“She was a little tentative early in the game. Then all of a sudden, she turned and shot the jumper, and that got her jump-started.”

More jumpers are to come. Poulakidas’ older brother, John, was a prolific 3-point shooter at Neuqua Valley who plays for Yale.

“He’s definitely on me a lot about getting shots up,” Poulakidas said. “He’s a shooter, so he’s like, ‘You should be getting a ton of shots up every day.’”

The results of the extra practice have been mixed. Poulakidas missed a pair of potential game-tying 3-point shots in the fourth quarter against Carmel. But she still has a green light from Williams.

“I’d give her that 3-point shot again,” Williams said. “She’ll make that shot eight out of 10 times. I don’t want to compare her to her brother, but she can shoot the ball. And I think the more pressure she’s under, the more she’ll be able to handle.”

Poulakidas and the Wildcats were under a lot of pressure against Carmel but didn’t crack. Washington scored a game-high 22 points, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 21 seconds remaining.

But Gillis scored inside with two seconds left, and the Wildcats were out of timeouts.

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Even so, Williams considered the game a milestone for Poulakidas.

“She’s starting to come into her own,” Williams said. “By midseason, I think she’ll be pretty close to unstoppable.”

The Wildcats could be tough to stop, too, with Poulakidas playing well at both ends.

“Tia did a phenomenal job on defense,” Washington said. “She was getting stops and rebounding, and on offense, Tia is a force. Teams always have to collapse on her, and we all get open shots off of it.”

Poulakidas believes the Wildcats have a shot to go far.

“We have a great team this year,” she said. “We can do some awesome things, so I want to make my last season the best it could be.”

Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.