Dec. 10, 2008
Those are words commonly uttered when the sophomores on the UCF women's basketball team are asked about the differences between last season and this season. The group combined to play a nation-leading 91 percent of the team's minutes in 2007-08, and they are confident that the experience they gained makes them more comfortable on and off the court. And by getting stronger in the offseason they are now more ready for success against a competitive schedule.
"I think it is going to help me a lot as well as my teammates," point guard Marshay White said of the experience. "Towards the end of last season we started to learn different ways to succeed on the court, and we started to compete more and play just as physical as our opponents."
"Together on the Rise" is the slogan being used by the program this season, and nothing epitomizes this idea more than this sophomore class. In class, UCF returns a group that started 110 games and averaged a combined 55.1 points per contest as freshmen. Among them are three double-digit scorers - Emma Cannon (11.7 ppg), White (11.6) and D'Nay Daniels (10.2).
Those three, along with Jelisa Caldwell, Angelica Mealing, Leah Paige, Jasmine Stovall and Chelsie Wiley, experienced together the transition from high school to college, in terms of basketball, academics and just being away from home for the first time.
"I am very excited," White said. "I can't wait to see where we are. I know we have grown in so many ways and grown close as a group on and off the court. The early schedule will be a great test for us."
The Freshman Year
While they made tremendous strides during the season, Cannon and Mealing admits there were growing pains and major adjustments.
"The speed of the game is completely different in college compared to high school," said Cannon of the adjustments. "You have to be in much better condition. In high school you are just out there playing, but in college things become more serious."
"Everybody playing physical, day in and day out, is probably the biggest difference between high school and college," Mealing said.
Most college freshmen are sprinkled onto a roster that includes numerous juniors and seniors, and therefore learn not only from the coaching staff but also from the team's upperclassmen. For this group, that was not the case. They were thrown into the fire immediately, and could look to only each other to make it through the transition.
"It was definitely a learning process for all of us," said second-year head coach Joi Williams. "For the freshmen, who had not played at this level, we had a lot to teach them both on and off the court. [The freshmen] were overwhelmed at times, but they never quit, and that was big for us. The positive side of that was that they gained so much experience. The flip side was the lack of experience made us come up short sometimes in the win-loss column because we did not know how to win in certain situations."
The team went through its ups and downs. From the season-opening 72-57 loss vs. a talented Texas Tech team, to a stretch in late November winning four out of five games, to the challenges of its first slate of Conference USA games, a road win at Memphis in its regular-season finale and a difficult 74-72 loss in the opening round of the C-USA Tournament.
"We did not have anyone that we could look up to, so we had to go through every situation on our own," Cannon said. "Our coaches helped out a lot, but it was more of a learning period than anything. Going through that helped us grow from freshmen to sophomores."
The season left the Knights with a 10-20 record, but it also left them with lessons learned, not only about the challenges of playing college basketball, but also about each other.
"I think the experience will help because we know what to expect and we know how hard we have to play each and every game to win," said Daniels. "I also think us being freshmen together helped us to know each other better, and that will make us better on the court this season."
The Offseason
For the freshmen class, the end of the regular season meant that in basketball terms they immediately became sophomores. They had gained the experience of playing a season of college basketball, but knew that experience alone would not get them ready to have more success in 2008-09.
As White said about the transition from high school to college, "the biggest difference is how physical the game is at the college level." With that mindset, White and the Knights knew it was time to go to work in the weight room.
"Coming in last season, a lot of our players had never done anything in terms of strength training," Williams said. "After the season ended, our players knew the hard work had just begun, and that we needed to improve in certain areas, with strength and conditioning being the major ones. They were all here over the summer, and were able to push each other to improve physically. Our strength and conditioning coach, Tracy Prosser, has worked incredibly hard with our players to get them ready for this season."
"We came in [as freshmen] not knowing what to expect in terms of conditioning and weightlifting, and then on the court everything was so much more physical," White said. "I think more than anything we have learned how to compete, and how to go out and play hard every game."
Taking it to the Next Level
As the offseason transitioned into the start of practice, the exhibition game and finally the start of the regular season, the players began the process of taking everything they had learned from their freshmen year along with all of the work they put in during the offseason and utilizing it on the court.
"There is no question that they have grown from last year," Williams said. "They have experienced a lot of growth and know the type of work ethic that they need to be successful at this level. They know the system and they know the expectation level of the coaches. We ended up having success late last season, and that spilled to offseason and now this season.
"We can build on what we learned as opposed to starting from scratch. As freshmen, there were a lot of things that they had never been taught, so we had to do a lot of teaching. Now they have a better understanding of the game, so we do not have to take the baby steps we had to take last year."
One area where Williams would still like to see growth from the sophomores is in their leadership, but she says she sees signs of this coming through.
"They are still trying to feel their way in terms of leadership. They were not fortunate to have a group show them how to lead, and they had to feel their way through. We are hoping that one or two step into that role, but as a group they are stepping up as they need to."
The team will be put to the test early and often this season, with nine games against opponents from the Big 12, ACC, SEC, Big East and Big Ten. Among the teams on the schedule are early road games at Colorado, Alabama and Florida State and home contests in December against Miami, Ole Miss and Wake Forest. In between, UCF travels to the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands where they will play Baylor, Villanova and Wisconsin.
"The non-conference schedule is tough and competitive," said Williams. "For the most part, and especially our sophomores, our players have now been through it before, and our thought process was to test them early. We are going to some different venues and playing in tough environments. Ultimately, the goal is for the non-conference tests to prepare us for Conference USA."
No longer the awestruck freshmen that opened the season last year, the sophomore class is not intimidated by the schedule, but instead ready to get things started.
"I am very excited. We play some good [non-conference] teams which will get us prepared for conference," Cannon said. "Last season I did not know what to expect, but getting that year under our belts was a stepping stone and now we have a foundation for ourselves which will help us this season."