The Playbook: Year 2

An occasional series about the University of Rhode Island Women’s Basketball Team and Coach Cathy Inglese as she tries to turnaround a losing program.

By Laura Pappano

At halftime, I thought there was no way.

Yes it was close, the half ending at 23-21, with Fairfield up by two. But Fairfield was in a rhythm. Their shots fell. Their passes were crisp and smart. They were getting inside. They seemed to know where teammates were, moving like dancers in a well-choreographed piece.

Rhode Island was scrappy, unsure. Players seemed surprised when passes arrived in their hands. Shots were close, but bounced out, skimmed the rim, fell like sour notes in a concert. These were ugly baskets.

In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter how you get the points. For those who love the art of basketball, know that by the end the Rams were elegant, with acrobatic drives through the paint and sailing 3-pointers that slipped through the net. Captain Megan Shoniker (#10) made three and Ashley Rivera (#12) made a key long basket in the final three minutes of play to put the score at 48-44 before a fouling festival by Fairfield brought the final to 52-44.

In the second half, the Rams played like a team that expected to win. They were rising, stepping, and shooting with a confidence that suggested that whether or not they deserved it, they decided to own it. They did not so much win this game as take it. They persisted, even when trailing by 10 points.

So what did Head Coach Cathy Inglese say at halftime? What were the magic words?

She says, she just complemented them, focused on telling them what they were doing right. “We were getting the looks, we were taking the shots. We were just missing them,” she said. “They were a little hyped up. I said, ‘Be patient.’”

Fairfield is a good team. “They are a strong offensive team,” observed Inglese. “They don’t waste a dribble or a pass. But our kids just kept going.”

It’s far too early to tell what this all means. Yes, it was he second come-from-behind win on the road within days (on Saturday they closed a six-point half-time gap against NJIT to win 57-51).

Yes, the early rankings have URI near the bottom of the A-10. But the beauty of leading a turnaround is that you don’t worry about what is supposed to be. You don’t listen to the conventional wisdom, to the downer that three players are out with injuries, to opponents that were 3-0, to the goofy band guys in red and white striped shirts razzing you at the foul line. You don’t dwell on the schedule that has you on the road for a tough stretch.

You play with heart. You play with passion. You play with discipline. You make mistakes. You move on. You step up and try again. And again. And again. Sure, Fairfield might have had more plays, better passing. But in the end, Rhode Island was in it for every single minute of the game.

By Laura Pappano

It’s starting. New uniforms are arriving. Coaches of other RAMS teams that bump into staff of the URI women’s basketball team are chatting about the season. For the first time in years there is anticipation that this year — maybe — could be the start of something. But as Head Coach Cathy Inglese and her assistants — including two former pro players – prepare for tomorrow’s exhibition game and the season opener next week against Fairfield University, there remains a lot of work ahead for a team that won three home games last year.

Inglese challenged her new team this summer, pressing them to improvetheir grades. Her philosphy: You can’t be excellent on the court and mediocre in the classroom. Players responded.

Now, how do you go from being used to losing to understanding how to win? From playing better on the road to developing a fan base and a home-court advantage?

Coach Inglese, asst. coaches Ashley Earley, Amber Jacobs, and Megan Lanham, director of operations Steve Wallace, and team captain junior Megan Shoniker, spoke with FairGameNews about some of the challenges of teaching players a new system, new expectations — and at the same time building support on campus and across the state for a team that may not — YET — have all the talent it needs to finish near the top of the conference and, dare say, make it to the NCAA tournament.

FGN: As a player, Megan, you were here last year. Does it feel any different now?

Megan Shoniker: It’s a lot different. We are reaching out more and getting people’s attention, going into the community.

Megan Lanham: With men’s basketball, people go and it’s a sport they watch. For women’s basketball, you need to build a sense of ownership. People want to know the players and the coaching staff.

Cathy Inglese: I’ve been out talking with people, groups. I say, ‘We are the State University. We are your University. Come support us. We want to make you proud.’

Steve Wallace: I talk to  my friends and they say they say they don’t go to women’s basketball. I say, ‘Come to one game and you will be hooked.’ And they come and they are.

FGN: How does the team look?

Megan Shoniker: I was really excited about Julia [Barac], one of our freshmen. But she’s gotten injured.

Megan Lanham: We are excited about Megan. The question marks on our team are the point guards. We have two freshmen. That will be something to watch develop.

Cathy Inglese: We need to have some kids stepping up – and it’s still early. I think Julia could be very good. I know she worked hard over the summer and she came back ready. But consistency, that to me right now is our issue. Right now the system is all new to everybody. This is one of my favorite times of the year. I don’t care what the heck anyone else is doing, I’m not looking at scouting reports. I am teaching our players what they have to do on and off the court. Part of it is creating that strong core, teaching them what it’s like to compete, what it is like to go hard.

FGN: I understand that you care a lot about fundamentals. What does that mean?

Amber Jacobs: We break every little thing down. Even the smallest footwork matters like a jump stop or a pivot or jab and go. You learn those in 7th grade, but to break that down again as a college player and build on that to dribbling moves and defensive stances – how to beat your player off that first quick step – footwork and fundamentals are key.

Cathy Inglese: What a lot of kids don’t want to do is break it down. They just want to go out and play. But I’ve noticed that it pays dividends with kids. We run a lot of set plays, but we also look at the fast break. We need to be sure we have smart players so when somebody doubles on the screen, they know what to do…Right now they are running to where they need to be, but not executing. Executing is knowing how to react to the various defenses that are thrown at them. There are all these layers as teacher and coach.

Ashley Earley: The system we ran at Vanderbilt was built on fundamentals. That was one reason I wanted to work for Cathy. As a coach, you can’t skip this step. What’s most exciting to me is to see our evolution. I’m excited to see the team come together. Right now, we are still a group, not a team. But we are 10 steps closer to being a team than we were this summer.

FGN: The Atlantic 10 pre-season coach’s poll has the team finishing 12 out of 14. Does that bother you?

Megan Shoniker: It’s a smack in the face. You never want to be 12 out of 14, but we have yet to prove we deserve higher than that. It’s our job to prove them wrong.

Cathy Inglese: Pre-season polls are guestimates. It’s how you finish at the end. Obviously we are hoping to be much higher than 12th.

FGN: There were also no URI players named to the first, second, third or defensive teams in the Atlantic 10. How does that reflect on your team?

Megan Shoniker: There are a lot of talented players in the A-10.

Cathy Inglese: We are here to change the culture of what people think about URI Women’s Basketball. The players on our team have to get better, but we also have to bring in better talent.

FGN: It seems like a Catch-22. How do you bring in better talent when the program has had a losing record?

Megan Lanham: The responses we are receiving in recruiting [for next year] are great. Having Cathy’s name attached to us is getting us in with high level players. They are calling us, they are visiting, high school coaches are contacting us. People know this is a building year. That’s been established. But there is an excitement to build a tradition and be part of hanging that first banner, to be a difference-maker in a high level conference. And Cathy is regarded as one of the best coaches in the nation. What kid wouldn’t want to come here?

The Playbook

By Laura Pappano

The first game of the upcoming season – against Fairfield University (18-13 last year) – is months away, but Coach Cathy Inglese is thinking about it. More pointedly, she’s thinking about the work she and her team have ahead of them to competitive in that game – and in the season.

In a visit to her new digs on the second floor of the Ryan Center (note: supernice facility) last week, Inglese showed off her freshly-painted lemon yellow office. The color — more intense lemon rind yellow than lilting pale — is not an accident. This is a place that needs some zip. Inglese, just back from a month of recruiting (Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, D.C., Maryland, Chicago) is not new to building programs. She did it at the University of Vermont and at Boston College.

So even as she complains about how far behind she is, how much there is to do, Inglese is clearly far more comfortable with the pressure of a clock than having a a wide open year to contemplate the meaning of coaching. That was last year. It’s nice, she says, to have a purpose again, to be part of a program.

In this case, she’s inherited a mess – and she’s pumped about it.

“Look at this film room!” she says, pushing open the door to a small room a few strides from her office in the women’s basketball suite. Video tape is stacked on tables, shelves – orderless. Down the hallway, newly-hired staff and assistant coaches (more on them in next installment) are in offices that hardly look unpacked, let alone organized. But everybody is busy. Working. Meeting.

The team IS behind. But it wouldn’t be the first time. Before Inglese was named head coach in April, departing coach Tom Garrick (56-112 record) did a mea culpa, apologizing for losing so much (56-112 over six seasons).

Last year, they won just three games at home.  The other stats aren’t any better:  Opponents outscored URI 929-738 in the first half and 972-922 in the second half. In key statistics (free throw, field goal, 3-pointed, rebounds) they were trounced. (URI had edge in steals). Click here for stats.

“I would love to say .500 or above,” as a goal for a win-loss record this season, says Inglese. But she insists she is building for the long term and that means tackling a deeper issue: Getting rid of the losing culture. That means no more dogging it in practice – or in the classroom. That means no cutting classes or saying you e-mailed that paper when there’s no evidence you did. It means practicing like you intend to play.

Because she was only with the team for two weeks in the spring, summer session was the first time Inglese could give players a taste of her expectations. When she discovered that the team GPA was 2.4, she was… “really disappointed.” Not just because she’s a coach who boasts a 100 percent graduation rate, but because she believes you can’t be great in one arena and lazy in the other. There is a connection between life and sports, school and basketball – and she wants players to understand that, too.

“I tell the kids I don’t like mediocrity. I don’t like just getting by,” she says. “I want these kids to know what it takes to be successful. I want them to work hard in the off-season and learn how to win.”

It may be too soon to tell if Inglese can spur a mindset shift. But in her first challenge to them – earn a 3.0 for summer school grades – they responded with a 3.3. “To me that’s something. Our kids were coming in talking excitedly about what grades they got in summer classes,” she says. (The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association in July announced teams with the best GPA’s. Indiana State was top in DI with 3.645)

It’s early, but Inglese sees several keys to turning around the program – short and long term:

1.    Leadership on the court. “You have to have a person on the court who sets the goal, who sets the standard.”

2.    More basketball talent and especially players who get the ball in the basket. “You can’t win a lot of games scoring 54 points a game – and that’s what they averaged last year.”

3.    Limit turnovers. “We have to take care of the ball more. That comes with the teamwork.”

4.    Hard work. Positive attitude. “They are tired of losing and they are at least saying they want to win.”

5.    Understand success is not immediate and keep focused on the goal, realizing in the interim that some losses are better than others. “It is scary to work hard and not win, but even if you don’t win you can measure progress in other ways. Maybe this year you lose instead of by 20 points, you lose by 5.”

Her job? Inglese needs to get to know the players better to understand how to motivate them individually. They are all making short videos of their families and homes to share as a team when they return. Inglese is also listening to a request from players: get more fans in the stands at the Ryan Center (last year’s average home attendance was 2,223).

“The biggest thing the kids have said is, ‘Please ask people to come to our games,’” says Inglese. “People are excited in the community here, Rhode Island is a big basketball state. This is something I promised the players I would work on.”

Round one of the women’s NCAA Division 1 lacrosse tournament offered zero upsets, but expect excitement this weekend when top teams meet in the quarterfinals (championships next weekend at Towson University in Maryland).

This is college sports — and anything can happen.

Breaking it down:

Number one seed Northwestern wants to repeat (they’re national champs four years running).  Under Kelly Amonte Hiller, the Wildcats get credit for revolutionizing the women’s game. Coach Hiller recruits pure athletes and molds them into cogs in the well-oiled machine that is her Northwestern dynasty.  Every year the Cats lose seemingly irreplaceable leaders, but young guns step up and file seamlessly into the lineup. Do note, though, highly-touted player Hannah Nielsen suffered a knee injury a few weeks ago. Bottom line: The balance of this team is tough to beat.

Northwestern will face perennial power, Princeton. Princeton, which long sat atop the Ivy League, is lately coming in second behind rival Penn.  The difference between the two programs? Princeton plays a more emotional, flow-state game. They’ll go up, they’ll go down, but it’s always interesting. Holly McGarvie (Sr., Midfield) is the team’s heart and soul, and her intensity serves as a barometer for the play of the entire Princeton squad.

Conversely, the Penn Quakers play a more deliberate and methodical game. Nothing about them is particularly special, but everything is rock solid. Penn dropped a surprise game to Stanford towards the end of the regular season, but that may have been the loss they needed to refocus for the NCAA Tournament. Their first round game with MAAC Champs Fairfield was closer than most expected (10-8), but a win is a win — and they got it. This is a team that has grown accustomed to winning, and that’s provided a real mental advantage.

Duke, North Carolina and Maryland are the three ACC teams still standing. No surprises there: these are classic women’s lacrosse powerhouses.  All three programs are built on the backs of blue chip recruits and long-tenured coaches. The three all play some variation on a “run and gun” game. They’ll push fast breaks, take a lot of shots, make a lot of mistakes, but hopefully win on the merit of players’ speed, stick work, and natural intuition. There’s little pre-conceived about game plans, so they live and die by the decision-making on the field. Sometimes that leadership comes through and they win big. Other times they fold unexpectedly under pressure.

Syracuse and Notre Dame are the two Big East teams rounding out the quarterfinal bracket.  Each has been making noise the past few years — Syracuse under the esteemed Gary Gait and Notre Dame under Tracy Coyne.  The Syracuse-Maryland matchup will be particularly interesting because Coach Gait arrived at Syracuse after a long stint as an assistant at Maryland (under Cindy Timchal). He knows the Maryland game plan well (he helped engineer it in the 1990s and early 2000s). Think of this game as a contest of old and new Gary Gait philosophies.  Maryland has more talent, but Gait is a genius. He knows the Terrapins can be fragile under pressure and will coach his Orange to push all the right buttons.

Notre Dame’s matchup with North Carolina is the biggest question mark of the bracket. Notre Dame’s potent attack lead by Jillian Byers (Sr., Midfield) will have a tough go against a Tarheels defense lead by Amber Falcone (Sr., Defense). Byers is as good as attackers come, but Falcone has seen it all playing a tough ACC schedule for the past four years. Both are Tewaaraton Trophy (lacrosse’s Heisman) finalists, and the two will play on USA national teams (Amber, World Cup Team and Jillian, Developmental team) this summer.

My picks for the final four: Northwestern, Penn, UNC, Maryland.

Lauren Taylor, who will receive her Master’s in Public Health from Yale this month, is assistant coach for the Yale Women’s Lacrosse team. As a player for Yale, she earned three All-America selections and was a four-time first team All-Ivy League selection.