The women's basketball team will not be tiptoeing into the 2002-2003 season. With two new assistant coaches, five new freshman players, and a pre-season schedule pitting them against the likes of Stanford, Baylor, and Hofstra, the Tigers are stomping back to the court.
Though assistant coach Robin Bostick's departure from the team during the summer was an unexpected loss for head coach Richard Barron and the Tigers, her replacement, Helen Williams, has had no trouble filling that hole.
Williams spent the last five years as an assistant coach at Navy, where she helped the Midshipmen earn the 1997-98 Patriot League regular-season title.
Gerard Garlic is the other assistant coach who brings seven years of coaching experience, including three years as head coach at Morgan State. A 1995 graduate of Goucher College, he captained his team for three years, finishing as one of the school's top-15 scorers and as the all-time leader in steals.
Having lost only one player, Lauren Rigney, to graduation last year, the Tiger squad consists mostly of veterans who know each other well on and off the court. Senior point guard Allison Cahill, who led the team in scoring and assists last year, and wing Maureen Lane, who netted the most three pointers, return to the team as co-captains. Lauren Goldbeck, a guard also entering her final season, will join them in leading the team.
Highlighting the junior class is guard Kelly Schaeffer, who led the team in rebounds and finished second in scoring last year. The veterans do not seem to be having any trouble assimilating the five new players into the group.
Freshman Rebecca Brown, a 6 foot 3 inch post player from Nashville, said, "It's been a really seamless transition. I've had a lot of support, and everyone's been really positive since the first day."
Rookie League
Brown, along with wing Lauren Nestor and guards Ariel Overstreet, and Ali Smith, are the five new players that will replace the one graduated senior, Lauren Rigney, making the 15-woman team larger than last year's.
The role of these young players will partly be to add extra pairs of legs and stamina to the games, but more importantly will be their role in intensifying the level of competition at practice and making the rest of the team work harder to earn their minutes.
"The freshman will add depth, as everyone will be competing for playing time," Barron said. "Their impact will be at practice, not necessarily in terms of minutes."
On more than one occasion last season, the Tigers would play a convincing first half, only to fall short in the final minutes to opponents whom they needed to beat for Ivy League standing. Against Columbia, for example, Princeton was unable to capitalize on its record-setting 13 three-pointers and lost, 73-72, in overtime.
Back to Basics
That is why there are two items that the Tigers have been focusing on at practice so far and which they hope to polish more as they prepare for Ivy League play — fundamentals and consistency.
At practice, Barron has been leading his team back to the basics, hoping this will translate into a consistently solid level of play not just from one opponent to the next but from minute to minute in each game.
Last season, one of the team's strong points was its pressure defense, which enabled the Tigers to get steals and transition quickly into a fast break. While this so-called"run-and-gun" strategy can often be very effective in wearing out an opponent, Barron hopes to work more on running set offensive plays from half court.
This involves working the ball more around the perimeter and running down the clock, which will presumably de-clog the paint and facilitate passes to the forwards inside.
If the pass is not open when the clock runs out, this full-court strategy will still be effective because the team is blessed with deadly three-point shooters who can hit from the perimeter.
But that again brings them right back to the basics — if they can't put in those three-pointers or get the easy passes inside, the play is over.
Princeton will open the season tonight at a tournament in Waco, Tex,. against host Baylor, which finished last year 27-6 and landed a spot in the NCAA tournament. This is the first of three major pre-season tournaments that include an invitational at Stanford and the two-day Pioneer Classic in Denver.
Despite the mighty reputation of these early opponents, the Tigers are ready for action.
"We've got nothing to be scared of," Cahill said. "It's going to be fun showing all those people what we can do."
With its matching Nike-sponsored shoes, Princeton is ready for the stomping to begin.
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