Today is the day. Gannon basketball season is upon us. I am looking forward to the debut of Jim Brunelli as Head Coach on the floor of the Hammermill Center.
Jim LeCorchick and Sean Amicucci sat down with Coach Brunelli at the brand-spankin' used Erie Insurance Arena before the season on Fox Sports Radio 1330 am The Fan. When asked about how he planned to transition from Cleve Wright's coaching strategy (which yielded 233 wins with the Lady Knights) into his own, I was happy with his response.
I'm paraphrasing, but the point Brunelli made was that he had sat down with the players individually in order to get a feel for the direction the team had been heading. Brunelli has the luxury of entering a system that had seen nothing but success with players who communicate very well. He also has the luxury of having strong leaders on the court, which probably made for valuable conversation in determining the path this team would trek, theoretically. Coach Brunelli was also happy to say that this team wouldn't center around Papich running the court, pounding the ball inside to Blake or Batts sniping from long-range. His hope was to see ALL of the players involved in every game. I like the sounds of that.
Batts saw stark defensive coverage toward the end of last season to cool her torrid pace, which is an area I would expect the team to strive to open up. I guess that's what happens when you drain 3's unconsciously like she has done, going into her junior year with the Lady Knights.
Jen Papich will be Jen Papich. And while she has paced the team in scoring for a large part of her career, I anticipate her senior year to result in the eyes of the PSAC being on her. Her trophy case has got to be getting full at this point, but hopefully by the end of this year she will be sporting some new hardware.
Kelley Sundberg seems to have opened up her offensive game. The conservative point guard has been great in quarterbacking this high-powered squad but to have just one more scorer on the floor would do wonders.
Amanda Berchtold appears to be a mini-Sundberg with more of a scoring mentality.
Nettie Blake was an absolute beast in the Maroon-Gold Game last week. This didn't surprise me much. She is a ridiculous rebounder and it looked like she had addressed her "finishing" game underneath the hoop. I call it that because her post play is almost always on point but finishing is where we sometimes see her struggle. I'm splitting hairs here to make the point that while Blake has looked remarkable the whole time she's been playing here, she looked more comfortable in the intra-squad scrimmage.
Jennie Theis will contribute to this team in a big way this year, playing crucial minutes and spelling the two-headed monster of Blake and Papich. She isn't much of a downgrade. She's a role-player who uses her length and athleticism to rebound and conduct herself comfortably on the court. She could definitely play on my team.
It will be fun to see what roles members of this team fall into under the new head coach. I hope to see you tonight (Wednesday) at the Hammermill Center at 7 for game one of the Gannon Lady Knights basketball season. This year, the Elite Eight runs through Erie.
Other sports stuff
- I got the best of both worlds last night, watching Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins go at it AND DUKE LOST!
- Louisville beat up on Hofstra but I'm not too surprised about that.
- The Pittsburgh Penguins play the Flyers tonight and look for the first of many games with Kris Letang and Olli Maata as a defensive pairing. While I wouldn't anticipate this becoming an installment for the season, it may be a sneak peak into the future of this team. The Flyers are in bad shape so the Penguins won't want to let up.
And lastly, this song will be stuck in my head all day because it's the first thing I thought of when I woke up.
great article! relevant,precise, and complimentary. (phil)
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