Monday, March 27, 2006
For next season’s women’s basketball team to repeat this season’s success, which included a victory in the WNIT, it will have to rely on some new faces.
Senior forward Crystal Kemp and senior guards Kaylee Brown and Erica Hallman accounted for 65 percent of the team’s scoring this season. Coach Bonnie Henrickson must find a way to replace those points as well as the leadership the seniors provided.
To help accomplish that, Henrickson is bringing in a freshman class next season of seven players, in addition to the nine players that will be returning. That number includes freshman forward Sophronia Sallard, who missed the final games of the season with an unspecified medical condition.
Among the returning players, sophomore forward Taylor McIntosh and freshman guard Ivana Catic were the only two that were regularly in the starting lineup during the season.
Catic was the team’s only true point guard, finishing the season with an average of five assists per game. She averaged 30 minutes a game, which will make her the most experienced player on next season’s roster.
McIntosh’s play was inconsistent. She had four games in which she scored in double-digits, but also three games where she did not score. Next season, she will have to adjust to having more defensive pressure, because opponents will not have to worry about Kemp.
Joining McIntosh inside will be freshman forward Marija Zinic.
Zinic started the season slowly but finished strong, and logged 31 minutes and a team-high 17 points in a WNIT loss to Mississippi.
Her progress came as she became more familiar with the English language. Zinic is originally from Serbia and Montenegro and had never set foot in the United States until a few weeks before the season. Next season she will be able to attend fall practices without having to worry about a language barrier.
At the guard position, Catic will take one of the starting spots, and the favorites to fill the other two positions will be junior guards Shaquina Mosley and Sharita Smith.
Smith played her way into the starting lineup towards the end of the season with menacing defense, shutting down elite players like Iowa State’s Lindsey Medders and Missouri’s LaToya Bond. Her offense was suspect, but it was rarely an issue because of the scoring power of the seniors, a luxury Kansas won’t have next season.
Those points could be provided by Mosley. Nicknamed “Shaq,” she came to Kansas as the National Junior College Player of the Year, but cracked the starting lineup only three times, and was suspended for two games in the middle of February.
Her athletic skill will have to be combined with an ability to run the offense and play in the Jayhawks’ defensive system.
It won’t be impossible for the Jayhawks to repeat the success of this season, but with 12 freshmen and sophomores on the team, there will be an adjustment period as the players learn their new roles.
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