Just like the boys, Shelomi Sanders followed Deion Sanders from Jackson State to Colorado. After appearing in five basketball games in the 2023-24 season, she decided to suddenly hit the transfer portal and switch for the third time in her college career. This time, to Alabama A&M to play for newly hired head coach Dawn Thornton. This enraged Coach Prime who, in fact, went as far as labeling it as “stupid.” To say Shelomi’s mother, Pilar, stood by her side would be an understatement.

Pilar gave her two cents shortly after Deion’s statement, “You always talk about a present person, don’t. Stop talking about a present parent. Don’t make me say more than I have to say.” In the aftermath of a messy back-and-forth that lasted for days, things have calmed down now. In fact, the basketball player was on the Cody Freeman Detail show on Sunday, talking about how life has been. Freeman had a quick question for Shelomi.

“How is that food like?” Freeman asked, and Shelomi’s answer shows how happy she is.

“First of all, Mom has been cooking, so the food is good,” Shelomi replied quickly on the Cody Freeman show on YouTube. It isn’t a surprise that Shelomi is now sticking around with her biggest supporter, Deion’s ex-wife, Pilar Sanders. And it seems they connect through food!

Last month, the college basketball player and her mother made a hilarious TikTok video, enacting Kendall Jenner and Kris Jenner’s iconic cucumber moment. The comedy clip was shot in a kitchen setup, where Shelomi was spotted cutting a cucumber while Pilar was standing beside her. What makes the reel so funny? It’s Pilar lip-syncing to, “Do you want the chef to make the snack?” 

When Coach Prime rejected Shelomi’s decision to transfer, Pilar was quick to come to her rescue. “Yeeaaasssss! Keep backing them down, baby!” Pilar mentioned in an Instagram post she had shared back on June 9. The video had snippets of Shelomi’s practice session back at Alabama A&M. While she couldn’t find the flair she was looking for back with the Buffs, she had made considerable progress at A&M. From all the practice clips posted to her Instagram, her mentor too, Ebi Ere, was quite happy with the progress she has made.

Ere even went on to share some clips back on January 4 and gave a massive shout-out to Shelomi. Not only that, even Dawn Thornton, HC for A&M Basketball who took office on April 6, has had massive praise for the kid just 20 days later. “Shelomi is just what we need,” Thornton had mentioned during an interview.

Shelomi seems happy there and is finally out of her father’s shadow.

Shelomi Sanders wants to create her own identity!

In the same video uploaded to the Cody Freeman Detail show, we also got to see a different side of Shelomi. One fan was trolling and directed a comment towards her. “Deion’s daughter,” the fan wrote. And in the video itself, we could see that Shelomi was uncomfortable about it.

The one thing she tried to step away from was Coach Prime’s shadow. Pilar also knew that Deion Sanders probably wasn’t going to have the best effect on Shelomi’s growth as a player.

“So Shelomi has taken the lead of her own life,” Pilar had said in response to Coach Prime’s comments regarding Shelomi’s transfer. If we compare her progress in the Buffs vs A&M, we can easily see that she is improving.

But why did she leave CU? It seems she had several reasons to do so. “It just wasn’t good energy. It wasn’t good vibes. There wasn’t enough being poured into me as a player and young lady. If I didn’t leave when I did, I promise you I would’ve quit.”

One thing we can think about is how her overall stats were drastically bad at CU. She had only participated in five games. Things were much worse when she was in Jackson State. There, she appeared only in two games, had limited playing time, and averaged just one point per game.

While Dawn Thornton from Alabama A&M has said that Shelomi shows promise and that she is amazing while playing from the back, only the future will tell if she finally manages to escape the title ‘Coach Prime’s daughter’ and becomes only Shelomi Sanders. What do you think?