Excited to match high effort with high execution as practice gets underway

By Danielle O’Banion

Head Coach

It has been awesome to have our team together for eight quality weeks of training during summer school. That is the longest our team has trained together since we have been here.

We also had a very productive month of September with our players in the preseason. It has been exciting to see the continuity from the summer through the fall, and now in many ways we are ahead of schedule with regards to implementing our system and in particular our defensive system.

We are very excited to now be able to have daily workouts and not be limited to those two hours per week.

This team will have eight freshmen and sophomores. Our juniors and seniors are also still relatively young in the game. Their retention has been very good. Their enthusiasm is extremely high. The effort level is off the charts. Now as we transition into official practices, we are talking about consistently executing. The effort has been unquestionable, but now we need to have that high effort matched by high execution.

Taking a look at our roster, our returning players from the spring have all significantly improved, particularly with their footwork. We spent a good amount of time working with post players Montia Johnson and CiCi Shannon on solidifying their footwork, particularly when they are facing the basket, out on the perimeter, and even while managing double teams. Last season they were a major threat for our offense and they garnered a lot of attention from our opponents. They are much more composed now because they feel like they are in better control. When you crowd them now, they are much more aware of maintaining possession and also finding the best decision they can make.

Krista White and Larissa Lurkin have had tremendous springs and summers in the weight room with our director of strength and conditioning, Bob Lemieux. They look dramatically different from a physical standpoint.

Our newcomers have all had their days and sequences where they have really come on. Lately, you can see Madison Ridout become more and more comfortable. You can see Jordan Korinek and Tyra James really start to emerge. Naddiyah Cross as a little point guard has been a spark plug since day one. She and Mikell Chinn have done a great job of helping each other at getting better at point guard.

Because we have had the summer access and because we have intentionally done some more five-on-five, live drilling this fall, we have had a little sneak peek at some different combinations, and we have been watching our new players and how they are integrating in with our returners. As a coaching staff we are ecstatic, but I think most coaching staffs are ecstatic right now. We are all undefeated. 

It will be interesting to see how many different ways we can play this way based on personnel. That is probably the biggest difference between this team and the other two teams we have had since we have been here. First of all, we have more players, so we have more depth. But we also have a more diverse skill set on our roster, so we will be able to change the way we play. We have more options. We are multidimensional, and we haven’t been that in the past.

We are still going to be an uptempo team. None of that changes. We are starting to look like we intended to look when we first got here. We have enough bodies that are physically capable and have a high enough basketball IQ to maintain this tempo. I think people got a chance to see that later in the season last year. It is exciting now in year three to have a chance to sustain that for an extended period of time.