DETROIT -- Seventy-five of 77 can be represented a number of ways.
As a fraction, it looks like 75/77. As a decimal, it's .9740. As a ratio, 75:2.
But on a high school basketball court in Metro Detroit, those numbers materialize wearing matching pink headbands and black Nikes.
Sixteen-year-old identical twin sisters Raine and Raven Bankston scored 75 of Mumford's 77 points in a heart-breaking three-point loss to powerhouse Pershing in the semifinals of the Detroit Public School League tournament last week.
Raven, who averages 23.2 points per game, had 47 against Pershing; Raine (19.5 ppg) had 28.
But the most unusual part of the feat for the 5-foot-8 junior guards is, nobody inside Mumford's practice gym earlier this week thought it was all that remarkable.
Oh sure, they were impressed, but as Mumford coach Kareem Hogan stated, if it could happen, these two girls would be the one's to do it.
"At a certain point, I just sat back and became a fan," Hogan said of the girls' performance. "When they start going like that, it's all you can do."
"It was unbelievable," Raven said of her 47-point effort. "It felt like I only scored a few, maybe 12. I couldn't hear anything else. I was in the zone."
A zone the Bankston sisters found again for 15-4 Mumford on Thursday night.
They scored 51 (Raine 29, Raven 22) of Mumford's 57 in a one-point victory over University Liggett, a top-10 basketball program in one of Michigan's richest suburbs. Liggett is armed with a trio of sisters themselves, but not quite like the Bankstons.
GROWING UP WITH THE GAME
For the Bankston sisters, the impressive numbers have been a product of a lifetime of hard work.
The girls started playing basketball at age 6, when their father, Robert Bankston, taught them the game. By the time they were 11, they were playing Amateur Athletic Union basketball in the prestigious Atlanta Select program, which is known for being highly competitive and for producing college athletes.
After their parents separated, the girls moved to Detroit with their mother, Elsie Cooper, in 2006.
They played competitively, mostly with boys, in recreation leagues before their time in the AAU. But their mother said, "The boys wouldn't pass them the ball. They were probably scared of getting beat."
That fear might have been a reasonable one. The girls have their hearts set on playing Division I college ball, an edict that is reinforced by their unflappable devotion to the gym.
"I can't get them out of here," Hogan said."They always want to be playing, all the time, all day.
“I’ve coached twins before, but the talent levels have usually been pretty far apart. But these two are real unique -- real girly, real soft off the court. But on the court, it’s incredible the difference. They flip the switch. I call them mini-LeBron Jameses because they attack the basket so strong.”
The talent level is evident to all those who watch them regularly.
“I think that these two girls' talent level is as high as any high school players around,” said Ben Kelso, the head coach of the boys varsity team at Mumford. “Very few kids can do what they do, you know, move at their high speed, change direction and then be able to stop, adjust and finish like they can. Even boys.
"Their talent level is off the charts. You have to be impressed with their athletic ability because that is something born in you, and you can see it. It’s there, and these girls have it."
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Athleticism runs in their family.
The Bankston sisters' older half-brother, Rafael Cooper, was a running back/return man who played college football at Louisville and Minnesota. He then got a brief opportunity with his hometown Detroit Lions in 2002 before landing in NFL Europe.
While overseas, Cooper tied the single-game record for rushing touchdowns (four) while playing with the Amsterdam Admirals.
Cooper checks in with the girls regularly, according to Elsie, and so does their father, who calls from Atlanta after nearly every game.
A DETROIT STORY
Detroit is its own entity, has its own pulse. On cold days, it even appears to be breathing, with steam jumping from manholes and storm drains.
The neighborhoods vary from block to block, and Mumford, formerly of "Beverly Hills Cop" fame -- Eddie Murphy's character Axel Foley sporting a Mumford High Phys-Ed shirt in the 1984 movie -- sits on one of the "other" blocks. It's less than a mile from Seven Mile Road and about the same distance from the prestigious University of Detroit Jesuit High School.
But in Detroit, a half-mile trip down the road can take you from decent to decay to dire.
Mumford has had some athletic success, winning back-to-back city championships in '78 and '79 in girls basketball.
They put out athletes -- including Eastern Michigan's leading scorer Tavelyn James, who's averaging 24.6 this season -- but Mumford's students and faculty are without a parking lot while the school is under construction.
The gym at Mumford is a throwback. Think "Hoosiers" without the rural charm: Ropes hanging in the back corner, an indoor track circling the court, which has a slightly golden hue from the yellowish, translucent windows that line one side of the building.
HERE COME THE BANKSTONS
When the twins arrived at Mumford, it didn't take long for them to make a splash. Check that, a tidal wave.
In her freshman season, Raven scored 48 in a varsity game.
"I had scored like that before," she said of her output against Pershing last week. "So I knew I could do it again."
Although it's clear Mumford is armed with one of the most explosive backcourts in Detroit, when the twins showed up their roles were reversed.
"I was the shooting guard and Raven played the point when we were younger," Raine said. "But they switched us up when we got here.
"I love playing point, and I think we have done a good job with the switch. Raven is more of a scorer than I am, but I do a good job keeping things under control. I like being the general out there.”
In the practice gym, telling the sisters apart isn't easy.
They wear matching Mumford High School t-shirts that read, "Bleed Burgundy and Blue." They keep their hair in matching top-knots. Their painted fingernails match and so do their swooped bangs. They wear the same shoes, same socks, same shorts.
It's confusing for a spectator, but maybe even more so for the coaching staff.
At one point during a practice session, Mumford assistant coach Dwight Jones, a Michigan High School Hall of Famer, yells out, "Raine! Close out! Hands up!"
To which Raine responds, "I was on offense! That was my sister!"
It wasn't really, but the girls got a good chuckle over it, and all Jones could do was shake his head and smile. It's tough to be mad at two players who produce at such a high level and work as hard as they do in practice.
As former cheerleaders, the sisters communicate well and know how to inspire. When one of the girls on the team is made to run after a lackluster effort on the glass, it becomes evident she's waning on energy.
Raine runs with the girl, pushes her and, most important, encourages her.
"That's what a team does," Jones said. "We push each other when we got nothing left."
But it seems that Raine and Raven always have something left.
"I got to make these girls leave the gym," Hogan said, with major emphasis on the word leave. "They always want to get better."
The Bankston sisters and their Mumford teammates begin their quest for a state title when the Michigan High School Athletic Association tournament gets underway on Tuesday.
