Whether it’s a half-court defense or a cell phone, Kaela Davis likes to tear things apart to see how they work.

As one of the most sought-after women’s basketball recruits in the country, Davis could have gone to any school she wanted, including traditional basketball powerhouses Tennessee and Connecticut, but instead she chose to come to Georgia Tech and enroll as an electrical engineering major.

Kaela enjoys a challenge, both on the court and off. Coming to the Georgia Tech to compete in the ACC gives her the chance to help Tech’s women’s basketball team reach new heights and also presents her with the opportunity to push herself in the classroom. Her major builds on her natural curiosity for pulling gadgets apart and putting them back together while also giving her solid training to rely on when her playing days are over.

“One of the biggest reasons I chose Georgia Tech over the others schools that recruited me was because they have such a great academic side” says Kaela. “There’s a really good balance here. At the end of the day I’ll leave with a Georgia Tech degree that will help me later in life. My parents always say basketball is only going to be there so long. You need something to do after that”.

Her parents would know.

Kaela is the daughter of former NBA player and current ESPN analyst Antonio Davis. A college standout at UTEP who studied computer information systems, Davis had a solid 13-year NBA career that included a stint as the president of the NBA Players Association. While he may have passed on his basketball genes to Kaela (and her twin brother A.J. who plays for Tennessee), she’s not sure where her interest in electronics came from.

“It kind of came out of nowhere. My dad is kind of a handy guy, but I think I just kind of got interested on my own. Growing up I was just always interested in how things work. I loved to build things, and that was always kind of what I liked to do.  Once I got into high school, I began to take things apart, especially electronics.”

So far the 6’2” guard, who averaged just over 18 points per game in Tech’s regular season (good for second-best on the team), is enjoying her studies and is happy with her decision to go into electrical engineering.

“I really think the technicalities of it, how something so simple can amount to something so big. I’m in a computer science class now, where we’re dealing with coding and stuff like that. It’s crazy how you can type something and it will pull up a picture or do all these really cool things.”

While Kaela is learning how to do cool things in the classroom she also has ambitious plans for her future on the court.

Talking about her goals as an athlete she says “I want to do something that has never been done at Tech. We are in a great position to do that this year, and we have a great group of girls coming in next year. I want to keep improving and help get this program on the map, making it a big-time program. “

She took a big step towards that goal when she was named to the 2014 ACC All-Freshman team as well as being named Second-Team All-ACC. She can take another step by helping the Jackets make some noise at the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament where the 10th-seeded Yellow Jackets will face seventh-seeded LSU on Sunday, March 23. Davis put up 28 and 16 points in the ACC tournament in a win over Virginia and a loss to runner-up Duke, and you can expect more of the same from her in the big dance. 

While Davis is focused on the task at hand, she’s also looking down the road at where a Tech pedigree can take her when her college days are over.

“Obviously if I could continue to play a little bit after college, I would love to do that but I think with an electrical engineering degree from Tech I could see myself getting a job that helps other people, maybe helping make life easier in the developing world or something like that. I have a few ideas, but you never know what happens so we'll see.”

Given the way she has risen to the challenge of being a student athlete in one of the top engineering programs in the nation, you can expect to hear a lot more about Kaela Davis over the coming years.