New Recruits

When you are down to eight players because of unfortunate season ending injuries, your active players get very little rest in practices, if any. One adjustment is to shorten practices, but when you still have an entire conference season left to play, it's time to brainstorm some new ideas to improve your ability to move forward.

One solution is getting "scout guys" to help out. We currently have 2 to 3 regular scout guys, and they are awesome. Our coaches have also helped out. Coach Scanson and Coach Close have stayed extremely fit by jumping in, but with Coach Starr pregnant we continue to utilize her services on the sideline (and possibly offer her an extra snack or two to keep her happy).

Unfortunately, 2 to 3 scout guys still doesn't allow our athletes to get reps off, and I lose the services of two of my coaches coaching. So we decided to recruit students on campus. Here are some questions that had to be answered:

• Who is a full time student that we know played basketball in high school?
• Who played basketball in high school on our other sport teams that might be interested?
• Most importantly, who WOULDN'T be interested in joining our squad now that preseason conditioning is over?

Thankfully we added three members to the roster over the past few weeks. Two of them have already made it through the Clearinghouse and got to suit up for their first contest last night against ISU.

Here are a few highlights of the game.

1. Emily Allen- Shoots a step back three, misses but gets fouled. She immediately looks over to the bench and says "my bad" as to her decision to take the shot. She walks up to the free throw line for 3 shots. Makes the first, two claps for herself, then makes the second. She then remembers she forgot to go through her FT "routine".  So she does, and misses.
2. Kelsey Roben- Dashes to the weakside block as Rachel Semansky feeds her a pass to the rim. She looked like a Giselle!
3. Our new recruits Carrie Feenstra and Mary Anderson get in a DI collegiate game. We have a baseline out of bounds play and Coach Scanson is screaming to tell them where to lineup as they don't really know all of our plays yet. They look confused, I call a timeout.
4. Time is running out, and Emily Allen sees Mary Anderson open on the weakside, she passes and Mary takes her first collegiate shot, 2 points.
5. The most entertaining highlight, however, was watching Katie Bussey hustle all over the floor like the Energizer Bunny. She has never looked so fresh.
6. Todd attending the game WITHOUT the kids.  When I asked how it was, he responded with a big relaxed smile, "It was everything I thought it would be."  I think he'll leave the kids with the babysitter more often.  Thanks Cassie!

I think the extra rest and having additional bodies in practices does help! Emily, however, is just Emily.

Coach Bin