BYU ahead Lauren Gustin grabs throughout sport in opposition to Gonzaga within the 2022 WCC Girls’s Match on the Orleans Area in Las Vegas on Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Gustin is again for extra for BYU in 2022-23. Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information
First-year BYU ladies’s basketball coach Amber Whiting. BYU Photograph
The BYU ladies’s basketball program goes by means of two main transitions.
First, the Cougars are opening a brand new period below first-year coach Amber Whiting, who changed the legendary Jeff Judkins, who was on the helm of this system for 21 years.
Final season, BYU dominated the West Coast Convention, successful the regular-season championship.
In the meantime, this marks the ultimate season for the Cougars within the WCC earlier than BYU jumps into the Large 12.
Amid these modifications, on Wednesday, the WCC coaches picked BYU to complete third behind Gonzaga and Portland throughout media day on the Orleans Area in Las Vegas.
“I feel it positively offers us some motivation heading into this yr,” Whiting mentioned. “I feel we are going to shock lots of people with the staff we've got and I'm trying ahead to getting began.”
Ahead Lauren Gustin, who was the one BYU participant named to the preseason All-WCC staff, isn’t involved in regards to the exterior expectations.
“With the rankings popping out … that is motivating. We’re OK with it. We now have our personal targets that we’ve set as a staff and individually,” she mentioned. “We positively maintain ourselves to a excessive normal. We all know our targets and we all know what we’re preventing for. It offers us an additional motivation day by day.”
The Cougars are changing 4 of 5 of their starters from final yr, together with star guards Shaylee Gonzales, who transferred to Texas, and Paisley Harding, who graduated.
However Gustin, a two-time All-WCC first staff choice, returns. She averaged 10.7 factors and 11.5 rebounds final yr. She recorded 14 double-doubles and earned AP All-America honorable point out honors in 2020-21.
First-year BYU ladies’s basketball coach Amber Whiting.
BYU Photograph
Different key returning gamers embrace Nani Falatea, who hit 21 of 41 3-pointers final yr, and Kaylee Smiler, who has performed 63 video games in her profession. Emma Calvert, the 2021 Gatorade Participant of the 12 months, can be again.
“We misplaced quite a lot of good gamers — quite a lot of seniors, quite a lot of leaders. But it surely offers alternatives for others to step up. … It’s going to be completely different however it’s going to be an thrilling yr for us,” Gustin mentioned. “Clearly, we’ve misplaced quite a lot of nice gamers. However we've got quite a lot of nice women coming again. We really feel like all of us must step up and tackle a giant function, all of us. All of us must do extra on the offensive and defensive finish. All of us must step up.”
In the course of the summer time, Whiting and the teaching employees have been engaged on turning into acquainted with one another.
“Attending to know the coaches has been quite a lot of enjoyable,” Falatea mentioned. “They’re all unimaginable individuals and the extra we get to know them we see how a lot they care about us and it’s pushed us even additional.”
In 2021-22, BYU completed with a 15-1 report in WCC play and a 26-4 mark total after falling within the first spherical of the NCAA Match.
However Whiting isn’t specializing in the ultimate consequence. She needs to see incremental progress from her gamers.
“I don’t need them to look to, ‘We now have to be the WCC champions subsequent yr or it’s a failure.’ I need them to have a look at who will we play first? You need to take all of the little steps to get there.
“Within the meantime, from now till our first sport, if we've got 30 days left, 1%,” she mentioned. “Can we get higher 1% day by day? So by the point we get to our first sport we’re 30% higher. … I like to interrupt it down little by little — little targets to allow them to get their massive ones.”
The Cougars open the season with an exhibition sport in opposition to Westminster on Oct. 27. They tip off the common season on Nov. 8 at Colorado State.