Matt Insell knows the Ole Miss women’s basketball team remains a work in progress.
The third-year head coach just likes how much progress his team has made since he made that comment a month ago.
Coming off a three-game losing streak, Ole Miss (5-3) has won four-straight games prior to its scheduled game against Southern Mississippi on Saturday in Hattiesburg.
A big reason for the Rebels’ turnaround is the play of sophomore Shandricka Sessom. The 5-foot-10 guard from Byhalia is leading the Southeastern Conference in scoring (18.8 points per game) and is leading the team in field goal percentage (45 percent). She is
averaging 5.6 rebounds and is second on the team in steals (15). She also has taken 132 shots, which is more than double everyone on the team except Erika Sisk (74).
Insell believed Sessom was capable of playing at that level last season.
“The ball is going to be in Shandricka Sessom’s hands enough that she is going to put the numbers up to (be SEC Freshman of the Year),” Insell said prior to the 2014-15 season. “She has the athleticism to do it. The player people saw Shandricka Sessom a year ago, that is not even close to who she is right now. She worked her tail off this summer to continue to improve. She has taken her game to new levels. That is the exciting thing about her. She has always had the athleticism. One thing I really didn’t know about her was how good of a shooter she is. She can really shoot the basketball. She has great rotation on it. She can go off the bounce.”
Insell said Sessom showed signs of being that special player in practice, but he said she might have been too nice to be the player who takes the most shots on the team. He said a concussion Sessom suffered after she was undercut on a jump shot in a game against Florida sidelined her for three weeks and hampered her maturation. She ended the season averaging 5.3 ppg. and 2.4 rebounds per game and shooting 33.5 percent from the field in 13.7 minutes per game.
Insell said Sessom took ownership of her game in the offseason and embraced his comment that she had to be “special,” especially with the Rebels having to fill the void left by the graduation of forward Tia Faleru, who led the in scoring (14.6 ppg.).
But Insell said he had to remind Sessom of the role he wanted her to play after a closed scrimmage against Northwestern State. Insell said he wasn’t pleased with Sessom’s performance and that he told her he wasn’t going to deal with her if she didn’t stop being nice to everybody on the court when the team needed her to be a scorer.
“I told her she had one more chance and from that day she has been a different player,” Insell said. “She knows her teammates need her on the court and she has to score for us to be successful. She wasn’t what I wanted her to be as a freshman, but she kept working hard every day, and I knew she would eventually get there.”
Ole Miss has been a different team, too, since losing to Louisiana-Lafayette, Missouri State, and Middle Tennessee State. It kicked off the winning streak by beating Stony Brook and Wagner on a trip to New York. It returned home to beat Western Kentucky and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Sisk has played a key role in the resurgence. The junior guard is second on the team in scoring (10.8 ppg.) and leads the team with 26 assists.
Insell said Ole Miss didn’t panic after the losses. He said the players put aside personal agendas and had a practice at Michael Jordan’s personal gym in Manhattan that helped bring them together. From that point, Insell said the Rebels have improved defensively.
Insell said he hopes players like junior forward Shequila Joseph, freshman guard Alisa Alston, freshman guard Torri Lewis, freshman guard Madinah Muhammad, sophomore guard Kiara Golden, and junior forward Bretta Hart, who leads the team in rebounding (8.8 per game), continue to make solid contributions. He said he likes the team’s depth and athleticism and is confident it will be able to live up to the words of veteran basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli, who told him the Rebels are going to be a dangerous team come January and February.
“We have to keep working to get there and we will get there,” said Insell, who has gone to a four-guard lineup.
Maturing Alabama off to fast start
College coaches often say the biggest year of improvement for players is between their freshman and sophomore years.
Kristy Curry would agree. She points to her 2015-16 team as a perfect embodiment of how maturity can help a team improve.
Entering its game against Georgetown on Saturday, Alabama is off to a 7-1 start. The only blemish is an 83-65 loss at Tennessee-Martin on Dec. 2 when the Skyhawks went 16 of 35 from 3-point range.
Alabama has started quickly after facing adversity prior to the start of the season. On Oct. 2, three days before the official start of practice, Alabama announced junior forward Ashley Williams was going to sit out the season due to medical reasons. A member of the Southeastern Conference’s All-Freshman team in 2014, Williams led the team in scoring (13.7 ppg.) and rebounding (6.1 per game) last season.
But Curry said the Crimson Tide had talked about playing with a new attitude prior to the announcement. She said the Crimson Tide also were ready to take the next step with players like Hannah Cook, Meoshonti Knight, Karyla Middlebrook, and Quanetria Bolton set to put the lessons they learned as freshmen to use as sophomores.
“We have really challenged them by making them uncomfortable in practice,” said Curry, who is in her third season as head coach at Alabama. “We are always telling our players they have to learn how to be uncomfortable in practice because the game slows down.”
Curry said all of her players have embraced that concept and have grown more comfortable being uncomfortable. In fact, she said she likes the team’s blue-collar mentality and willingness to roll up its sleeves and work hard.
No player has epitomized that mind-set better than Cook, a 6-foot guard from Ozark, Missouri. Last season, Cook averaged 8.8 ppg., but she shot 32.6 percent from the field, including 29.8 from 3-point range. This season, Cook has raised her shooting percentage to 40.9 percent and is leading the team in scoring (12.9 ppg.) and rebounding (7.4 rpg.).
“It can be summed up best in that a freshman has become a sophomore,” Curry said when asked to explain Cook’s improvement. “It is tough in this league to be a freshman. The game is a lot faster, and players have to realize they have to get better working away from the ball and to use screens better and to read the game better.
“Hannah has come out and has been more aggressive. This is not a passive league, and she had to learn that. She is working hard off the ball and without the ball and has changed her pace.”
With Bolton, Knight, Middlebrook, and senior Nikki Hegstetter rounding out the starting lineup, Alabama also is one of the SEC’s most balanced teams. Through games played Wednesday, Alabama is one of four teams in the league that has four players scoring in double figures. Kentucky leads the SEC with five in double digits.
Curry said she was confident Alabama could have that balance without Williams because the players worked hard in the offseason to improve their games. She said the coaches talked with all of the players following the 13-19 season in 2014-15. She said a 10-day tour of Italy that included three games also helped the team grow closer and build chemistry.
Curry said that growth is a result of how the team has embraced the 1-percent rule. She said all of the players are doing what they can to help make the team better and are getting a little better every day. The statistics reflect that sentiment, as Bolton, who didn’t start any games last season, has started every game this season and is averaging 10.5 ppg. Knight, who started only three games last season, is averaging 11 ppg.
Curry also said the players recognized an opportunity without Williams. She said Bolton, sophomore forward Diamante Martinez, and Cook have flourished, while the addition of freshman guard Shaquera Wade has provided added depth. Wade is averaging 6.0 ppg. and 4.6 rpg. and leads the team in steals (16) in 20.5 minutes per game.
Trista Magee, a former standout at Presbyterian Christian in Hattiesburg, also has returned from missing a month to play a key role off the bench.
“The kids have really taken advantage of (Williams’ absence), and we’re looking at it as a blessing in disguise,” Curry said. “We hope when Ashley comes back that all of those kids will be improved. You don’t replace Ashley with one player. You do it by committee.
“It is what it is. We don’t sugar coat it. Somebody else needs to step up and it needs to be a collective effort. They have done that and will continue to do that.”
Building continues at Arkansas
Jimmy Dykes didn’t get back into coaching because he thought it was easy.
After leading Arkansas to the NCAA tournament in his first season last year, Dykes and the Razorbacks are experiencing a few more growing pains early in the 2015-16 season.
A 65-50 victory against Oral Roberts on Thursday snapped a six-game losing streak.
Before the game, Dykes said the Razorbacks (3-6) will be challenged all season because they are the third-youngest team in the country. Despite the addition of five freshmen and three junior college transfers, Arkansas still returned 63.59 percent of its scoring from last season, and its two leading scorers, juniors Jessica Jackson and Kelsey Brooks.
But Jackson and Brooks didn’t travel with the team to its game against Rutgers on Dec. 6. Dykes said it was a “coach’s decision” when asked why the players didn’t accompany the team. He told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette prior to the game against Oral Roberts game that he wasn’t “going to sacrifice in any area to win a game over building a culture of how we’re going to work and how we’re going to do things all the time.”
Jackson came off the bench to score 17 points in 31 minutes against Oral Roberts. Brooks, who came off the bench and played 11 minutes against Missouri State, didn’t play against Oral Roberts.
Despite the lack of playing time, Brooks, who averaged 13.8 ppg. last season, is still tied with Alecia Cooley for second on the team in scoring (8.9 ppg.).
When asked about Brooks before the game against Oral Roberts, Dykes said, “she has some potential, and she is right there a lot in double figures like she was last year.” He also mentioned newcomers Jordan Danberry, a freshman guard; Devin Cosper, who was the only freshman junior college All-American last season; and Cooley, who also was a first-team junior college All-American last season, as players who the Razorbacks could look to to provide additional production.
Still, Dykes said his team’s youth and inexperience will be an issue. He said the stretch where Arkansas lost to South Dakota State, Tulsa, Louisiana-Lafayette, Oregon State, Missouri State, and Rutgers was designed to help his team understand what it takes to build a winning program. He said there is no way around the learning process and that he will continue to schedule tough non-conference games to make sure his players are ready for the rigors of the SEC.
“We love the recruiting class we have now, and we love the recruiting class we have coming in,” Dykes said. “I like the direction we are going, but it is way too early in the building process to win as many games as we’re going to win in years three, four, and five.”
Dykes hopes Jackson, who was named preseason second-team All-SEC, will be a part of that process. He said Jackson has improved her shooting percentage from 37.4 percent to 42.1 percent because she is taking better shots. He feels the maturation of Danberry and classmate Malica Monk at point guard will help make up for the graduation loss of point guard Callie Berna, who led the team with 166 assists last season.
But Dykes said freshman point guards find making the transition to life in the SEC just as tough as freshmen who play football in the league. He is confident, though, that Danberry and Monk will be two pieces of the building process moving forward.
“How many true freshman quarterbacks start in the SEC and have instant success? None,” Dykes said. “It is not going to be any different for a true freshman point guard in this league. They’re going to have to go through it. By the time they are in their sophomore year and they are a junior and a senior they will be ready to roll.
“There was not a point guard in the system other than Callie Berna, so I knew year two was going to be tough. I like those two kids. They are aggressive and hungry and have some talent.”
Florida doing it by committee
Amanda Butler hopes the 2014-15 season was an anomaly for the Florida women’s basketball team.
A 13-17 (5-11 in the SEC) finish snapped a run of four-straight seasons of 20 or more wins. It also saw the Gators go through the season with only one player — Ronni Williams — average double figures (10.3 ppg.) and score only 61.9 ppg., which was ninth in the league.
Florida has been a different team this season thanks to balanced scoring that has seen six players lead the team in scoring. Credit Antonelli, who worked as the analyst Thursday at Florida’s 91-75 victory at Wisconsin, for coming up with this statistic: Florida didn’t have a player score 20 or more points last season. This season, the Gators have had four players — Williams, Haley Lorenzen, Eleanna Christinaki, and Cassie Peoples — do it. As a result, Florida is shooting 45.5 percent from the field and is scoring 84.8 points per game. Last season, Florida shot 39.6 percent from the field.
“We’re doing a much better job with shot selection,” said Butler, the ninth-year head coach who earned her 200th career win against Arkansas State on Monday. “You have to give the kids a lot of credit for their level of discipline and commitment in games to taking the shots we’re taking in practice. When you see that and mix that in with really dynamic players who are determined to be good, I think that improvement is inevitable.”
Williams leads the team in scoring (11.2) and rebounding (6.9). She had her best game of the season (21 points, 10 rebounds) in an upset of Florida State in the second game of the season. That win kick-started the Gators’ eight-game winning streak.
But Butler would love to have Williams on the court more. The junior guard/forward has fouled out of four games and is averaging 19.9 minutes.
“It is a tough dance because you want her to stay aggressive, but, at the same time, you have to know when to let plays go and stop your attack and look for another option,” Butler said. “The great thing about Ronni is she is always working hard to get better.”
Butler credits assistant coach Bill Ferrara for his work on offense to get the Gators rolling. With 10 players averaging 12.1 minutes per game and eight averaging 6.7 ppg. or more, Butler said Florida is playing with the confidence it can have a different player lead the team in scoring for the rest of the month. She didn’t think higher scoring would be a guaranteed result of that balance, but she likes the production and versatility she has in a rotation that includes experience — January Miller and Carlie Needles — and newcomers — Simone Westbrook (transfer from Northwest Florida State College) and Christinaki, who is from Greece.
“We are very much an equal-opportunity offense,” Butler said. “We want to be really aggressive in transition and give everybody who rebounds and runs the floor hard an opportunity to score. In halfcourt, we want everybody to have an attacking mentality and to value getting the ball in paint and to do what they do.
“This team really enjoys each other and likes sharing the ball and likes seeing everybody have success. The biggest strength is balance, but we also have depth, which allows us to play fast for longer. We are rotating a lot of players in there and getting a lot of quality minutes from a lot of people.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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