| Women’s basketball team looking for immediate results from a bevy of newcomers BY MIKE UNGER
Larry French
Juniors Abby Lipskis, above, and Tara Williams, below, hope to lead AU to the Patriot League title this year.
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The AU women’s basketball team lost six players to graduation from last year’s squad, which finished 7-7 in the Patriot League. This season, Coach Melissa McFerrin and Eagles fans are hoping that a nice blend of newcomers and returning contributors like junior guard Tara Williams and junior forward Abby Lipskis can catapult the team back into contention for a league crown. McFerrin recently took time to answer a few questions about her team, which tonight takes on Furman University in Greenville, S.C. Q: What do you view as the strengths of this year’s team?
A: I think it’s going to be our quickness and our guards, and hopefully over time our depth at the guard positions. We have many more ball handling and passing skills than we had a year ago. I also think we’ll have a better running game, and we’ll be able to feed the post players we have. I think we’re going to be a pass-oriented defensive team. Q: What concerns you most about the team?
A: My greatest concern is how quickly can we learn a system and the physical play at this level having so many youngsters? I think we’ve learned some of that already, and we have a better understanding of that today than we did two weeks ago. Q: Your team was picked to finish fifth in the preseason Patriot League poll. Do you use that as motivation for your players, or do you not worry about it?
A: In all honesty that is something that I’m not overly concerned about. It represents the fact that we graduated six seniors, and no one in the league knows what our new players can do. We’ve talked about it as a team, and we have no intention of finishing fifth. These players were not brought here to finish fifth in the Patriot League. Q: What kind of contributions are you looking for from the team’s many newcomers?
A: If there’s any indication, we finished our overtime game [a 74-72 win over Western Michigan on Nov. 26] with four freshman on the floor. Many times throughout the course of a game we’ll see four freshmen on the floor. I’m hoping our seniors and juniors can become great leaders. What I expect from the freshmen is for them to learn quickly and play hard. I also expect them to bring a little bit of an attitude to the floor. They are high achievers, and I want them to have high expectations here. Q: How will you and your team grow and develop now that you’ve each had one season together?
A: Because we have such a new team, I nearly view this as a second first year. We have two players, Tara Williams and Abby Lipskis, that played significant minutes last year. Other than that, everyone is basically a newcomer for us. I expect them to know the expectations for team play, for cohesiveness, for effort level, but I do view this as a second first year. We’re still very much in a learning phase, but the upperclassmen know the values of our team, the expectations in terms of attitude and effort and loyalty and togetherness. That culture I believe is fairly firmly in place. |
