Battling For Minutes
There
is time on the court to be seized by members of the University of Iowa
women's basketball team in quest of a seventh consecutive berth in the
NCAA Tournament.
How
many minutes are up for grabs? The graduation losses of leading scorers
Morgan Johnson and Jaime Printy, along with Trisha Nesbitt, leaves a
void of 2,398 minutes. For three players, that is an average of 23 ½
minutes per game.
"There
will be minutes for people to get; people who haven't played that many
minutes before," UI junior point guard Samantha Logic said Thursday at
Big Ten Basketball Media Day in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare. "That helps
intensity in practices, too."
Head
coach Lisa Bluder will not use games as an avenue to earn playing time,
that will be done daily in practice. For Bluder, entering her 14th
season with the Hawkeyes, the mission in games -- as always -- is
victory.
"Our
chemistry is outstanding. We have always had good chemistry, but this
team has taken it to another level. These players genuinely love each
other, they care about each other so much. You have somebody like
Theairra -- they love her, they want to win for her. They know what she
has been through, they admire her for what she does every day for us.
When you have that extra incentive and emotional attachment, you want
to come to work, you want to play, you want to get your extra shots in
because you want to do it for her. That's been an added bonus for us." "We
need to give everybody experience, but at the same time my goal is to
win," Bluder said. "You have to earn those minutes in practice. I have
to use those experiments in practice against our gray squad -- once we
tip off against California Riverside we have to play to win."
The Hawkeyes open the regular season Friday, Nov. 8, against UC Riverside with a 6 p.m. (CT) tipoff inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
A
potential starting lineup of Logic, senior Theairra Taylor, junior
Bethany Doolittle, and junior Melissa Dixon have a combined 105 starts
last season and Dixon was named the Big Ten Conference Sixth Player of
the Year. No one else on Iowa's 11-player roster has started a game.
But what the 2013-14 Hawkeyes lack in experience, they make up for in
chemistry.
The sole for the team bonding is Taylor, who has overcome four knee procedures and is the team's only senior.
"Our
chemistry is outstanding. We have always had good chemistry, but this
team has taken it to another level," Bluder said. "These players
genuinely love each other, they care about each other so much. You have
somebody like Theairra -- they love her, they want to win for her. They
know what she has been through, they admire her for what she does every
day for us. When you have that extra incentive and emotional
attachment, you want to come to work, you want to play, you want to get
your extra shots in because you want to do it for her. That's been an
added bonus for us."
During
their six-year stretch, all ending in the NCAA Tournament, the Hawkeyes
won 21, 21, 20, 22, 19, and 21 games. Those teams had good chemistry,
but the 2013-14 squad has bumped it up a notch. Those teams had intense
practices, but the 2013-14 squad has bumped it up a notch.
"This
team has incredible focus and intensity," Logic said. "We have had
hard, intense practices getting after each other. That will help. We're
ready to play against someone other than ourselves. At the same time
you have to know how much you still have to work on yourselves."
Taylor
says practices are the most competitive since she arrived in Iowa City
in 2009, perhaps because so many minutes are at stake. Even with the
daily battles in practice, she senses the fellowship.
"To
see us interact with one another is completely different and I believe
that does show on the court," Taylor said. "It will show in different
aspects of our game, sharing the ball, and knowing where players are
off the ball, and how to get their shots."
Letterwinners
aren't the only ones competing for playing time. Freshmen Ally
Disterhoft and Alexa Kastanek, two top-100 recruits, will be thrown
immediately into the mix.
"The
two freshmen are doing well, but we expected them to," Bluder said.
"Quite honestly, we need them to do well because we don't have a deep
team. Both of them are winners and they want to compete. They
understand that they need to, and they're not acting like freshmen."
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