2004-2005 CROWN POINT Girls Basketball Preview

	Coach Tom May (25 years, 404-146) Varsity Assistant: Beth Jacobs JV coach: Scott Reid - Freshman coach: Gail Weilbaker Freshman Assistant: Allyson Carnahan
	13-9 in 2004, 12-9 in 2003
	Start times are Varsity starting times
Date	Location ALL CAPS = Duneland Athletic Conference game	Time

Nov. 12	Hebron {1A}	7:30 pm
Nov. 13	Kankakee Valley {3A}	7:30 pm
Nov. 19	at PORTAGE {4A	7:30 pm
Nov. 20	Warsaw {4A}	7:00 pm
Nov. 26	CHESTERTON {4A}	7:30 pm
Nov. 30	Lowell {4A}	7:30 pm
Dec. 3	at LaPORTE {4A‡	7:30 pm
Dec. 10	LAKE CENTRAL {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Dec. 11	at Boone Grove {2A}	7:30 pm
Dec. 14	VALPARAISO {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Dec. 17	at MICHIGAN CITY {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Dec. 18	at Hanover Central {2A}	7:30 pm
Dec. 29	at MERRILLVILLE {4A}‡	6:00 pm
Jan. 5	PORTAGE {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Jan. 8	at CHESTERTON {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Jan. 14	at LAKE CENTRAL {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Jan. 21	MICHIGAN CITY {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Jan. 25	LaPORTE {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Jan. 28	at VALPARAISO {4A}‡	7:30 pm
Feb. 4	MERRILLVILLE {4A}‡	7:30 pm

“She's a great kid. Her dad is the athletic director at Hanover Central. She's still learning how to play the game at the varsity level. As the opportunities arise, she'll get some opportunities on the varsity with the idea that she'll probably be playing a great deal for us next year.”

“Zaucha is a very good athlete. She's also a volleyball player. She has good size. She's very versatile. She can play almost every position other than the post. Right now, she'll be playing a lot of JV basketball. She'll dress on the varsity this year but for the most part, she'll be an integral part of our (varsity) team next year.”

“She played most of her time at the junior varsity level. As the season progressed, we felt we were a very good defensive team, we were very deficient with people who could put the ball in the basket and wanted to score and try to score. She started playing quite a bit near the end of the season and she played quite well in the tournament.”

“Right now, she's going to push for a starting position. She can play the '2' and the '3'. If Kaitlyn struggles, she'll step in. I don't see that happening. But if Hannah does not play as well as we think she can, Stephanie Poulos could get a starting job.”

“She shoots enough to have enough confidence to think she's going to make the shot. She thinks of herself as a scorer and a shooter. We're on her a little more defensively. She'll fool you. She looks feminine and real petite. When we brought the Marine Corps testing program in here, what they call the barrage of testing. They put all our kids through it and she won it. She's one of the fastest kids and the strongest kids. But she doesn't appear to be that way.”

“Kaitlin is one of three (Courtney Perry and Anjellica Rospond) who are fighting for the starting center position. Right now, Courtney Perry has put in more time. She's worked every day on basketball while the other two have been playing volleyball.”

“Kaitlin is special. She's very athletic. She has an edge to her. She's hard nosed and a good athlete. We have convinced her that if she gives us what we want, she has a chance not only to start at the '5'. Then, we're looking at her at the '4' next year when the younger kids (Perry and Rospond) are more experienced.”

“She's quicker than the other two. The way we're running our offense this year, the post will be much higher up on the floor. That would give her a chance to do more things.”

“Michelle is all-heart, all-strength, all-coachability, all blue-collar. She came from a very successful soccer program where she gave everything she had. She knows she's in a very tedious position because she' playing behind one of the state's better guards. But she knows that anything can happen at any time. She knows that with the style of play we'll be using this year, called the 'hybrid'. She'll get minutes because Cassie (Pruzin) will going to the '2' at times. Cassie could get hurt. Cassie could get into foul trouble. And she's got to be there for us next year. Early on, I'm looking at Cassie, Kaitlyn (Sertich) and Michelle. When Kaitlyn comes out, Cassie will go to the '2' and Michelle will go in at the '1'.”

“She'll do what we ask her to do. In practice, if we ask her to take Cassie on, she will not be afraid to do that. She will push her. They'll push each other and that helps us.”

“Hannah started most of last year. The big key with Hannah is we want her to work on her offense and eliminate offensive mistakes. But if we stated tomorrow, she'd have the starting job. We want her to play consistently. Both on the offensive and defensive end. When mistakes are made, correct them immediately. To nod and smile and make the same mistake two minutes later is not going to be acceptable this year. She has the ability to be very good. But she must work on her weaknesses. She's one of my strongest kids. She actually looks smaller than she really is.”

“Jackie is another of my strongest kids. And one of my most coachable kids. She plays very well on the defensive end. She's pushing for a starting position but when the season starts, she'll be rotating with Jill Weiand at the '4' spot. But she'll play a lot. The person who got into foul trouble the most for us last year was Jill Weiand. I'm one that if the senior does not produce, the senior does not lead and the senior does not get things done on the floor, I will take them out. Right now, I'm thinking we'll have a real good season at the '4' spot.”

“You tell Jackie something once and you don't have to tell her again. She gains from that. She will knock you on your butt. She's another soccer kid. I like her a lot. Jill's coming off volleyball and she' moving to the '4'. Jackie will get a lot of playing time until Jill gets really in to shape and learns the position.”

“Amanda Moore is the best shooter we have on our team. The reason is, she takes pride in it. She works on it every single day. After practice she goes to the YMCA and plays some more. She plays basketball every single day. Principal Ryan Pitcock came in one day and said, 'Amanda, If you can hit 7-out-of-12 from three-point range, I'll buy your whole table pizza tomorrow.' Amanda hit her first 10. She hit 11 out of 12.”

“We're going to have to have a kid shoot the ball. A lot of teams are going to zone us, deny Cassie the ball and allow the other kids to shoot. Now at the varsity level, if she hits two, they're going to get on her. So we're working with her. Can she dribble-shoot left, dribble-shoot right. can you finish left? Can you finish right?”

“In our defensive team, you have to get out there and really go defensively. Her dad is about 6-7. So she's still growing. She's going to be playing a lot on the JV. But we're going to look for her right away to play a couple of quarters. If any of my other kids struggle at the '2', she'll get to play. Poulos is moving to the '2' and Moore to the '3' and they're both going to shoot the ball.”

“Her dad is Anne's brother. Mary Kvachkoff is her older sister. Katie just keeps growing. She's like Ashley Zaucha. She just keeps growing and she is athletic. She's all arms and legs. Right now, we're trying to get her strong and locate a position we want her to play. Right now, she'll be playing the '4' for (JV Coach Scott Reid). She could play the '3' if we need her to do it. She could play the post. She can actually bring the ball up. She just needs to play and become comfortable with what she's doing on the floor. She'll be on the JV early but she may get some varsity time.”

“Courtney Perry and Amanda Moore did the most to improve their games in the off season. They didn't play games more than anyone else in the off season but they worked to improve their game. She had the post workout mastered in a few weeks. She's strong and young and quick. She's very coachable. All the things she does well, when she's under stress, things change. She's got to not let that bother her. If we were to start tomorrow, she'd be in the starting lineup. But we've got Sautter and Rospond coming hard.”

“At the end of last year, Anjellica was ahead of Kaitlin (Sautter) and Courtney (Perry). But Kaitlin is more athletic. Courtney put in more time on the things she needed to work on, especially in the last two months when Courtney was in volleyball. Two months makes a difference at this stage. She'll start with Scott (on the JV) early but she will be coming up. She's very important to us. As she grows into the game and gets her body back... which will be about 30% of the season, she'll get a lot of playing time.”

“When you come to practice every day, you want a kid with a smile and coach who just works hard, that's Jill. She makes me want to coach a lot longer. When I see her, it makes me feel happier. She makes you feel wanted and appreciated. Jill is a little bigger this year. She's gotten stronger. For the first time, she's playing the position she'll play all along. Jill is active. She's all over the floor. She's not afraid to put a body on people. She's not afraid to get down on the floor. With her and Jackie, I think our '4' spot is pretty good. Her teammates like her. The younger kids like her. She probably thinks about her teammates more than anybody else.”

“Kaitlyn should be one of the better '2' guards in the area. She averaged almost double figures in every game last year. She's one of the best defensive players you're going to see. She does a lot on the floor. I think she'll be an even more varied player this season. Kaitlin can't rely on her counterpart (Cassie Pruzin) to make her a better player. I want Kaitlyn to be the player that if Cassie is down or Cassie fouls or if Cassie gets hurt, she can take over the game. She has to improve her 1-on-1 skills and take a leadership role. I know she can do it and I think she's going to have a big year.”

“Based upon the selections of the coaches of Indiana, she was the best junior point guard in the state. She was selected to the core group of the junior all-star team so she was among the top-6 juniors in the entire state Indiana. She will probably be a first team all-state in “Hoosier basketball magazine” She'll be on the cover. She will probably be a first-team all-stater in Indiana basketball weekly. She gets all these accolades. She's got to be our player. There's no question she can't be.”

“I want her to dominate every game she's in and if she doesn't it's because the other team has put more than one player on her. Then, she's got to have the leadership to get the ball to other players and encourage them to score. If she can do that, she'll have an even better year.”

“Cassie is a very good 1-on-1 defensive player. I want her to be a very good player in a team concept. I want her to be able to come and steal the ball from someone other than her player. And still get back if she doesn't get the steal. When Nancy Cowan played, other players were in fear that she would come across the floor and steal the ball, and still be quick enough to get back to her man if she didn't get the steal. That's what I want Cassie to be able to do.”

“I don't want to her to get senseless fouls. She's just got to be on the court for us. I want her to be headstrong but headstrong to a certain point, and then she's got to go along with the program. We're going to do a lot of different things to get her the ball. A lot of schemes. Cassie has played more basketball than any kid we have. There are things she has to work on. For example, off the ball, she can beat anybody. But when people get right up on her she's got problems. She wants to put the ball on the floor right away. Once you put the ball down and you're dribbling, you're vulnerable. You can shot fake and pivot and do a lot of things before you put the ball down. She needs to work on things, but she's going to have a great season.”

ON LEADERSHIP - “In 1984, we were 29-0. Cowan was my best player. Kvachkoff was my best junior. My best captain was Merit Erickson, she's an internist op-doctor now here in Crown Point. The best captain is not necessarily your best player. She's the one who took care of problems. She took care of kids. She communicated. She took care of problems. Put the fear of God in them if they didn't do things right. That's what we have to have. If we go up and down the floor four or five times and don't say anything, we're going to sit people down. That's one of our goals. We have to communicate better and we will.”

ON OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE CHANGES -- “Offensively, we'll be running like crazy. Offensively, we'll be up high on the post. We'll have more options. For example, Cassie will have three options on most plays. All the kids have to know what they are. Some kids will have two options. And they have to make something happen. They can't just catch the ball and pass it back.

Right now, we have 7 full defenses and something we call 'hybrid'. We are not going to go down the floor and let a team come to us. We'll press after misses. We'll press after dead balls. We're going to trap all over the floor at all times. We have four half court defenses. We aren't going to defend. We are going to attack defensively. We are going to make people beat us off the dribble and out run 10 of our players. Every team has a press offense. Everyone has a zone offense. No one has an offense off misses. You have to be in shape to do it. We are going to have to be in top shape.”

ON THE DUNELAND ATHLETIC CONFERENCE -- “By far. Valparaiso is the team we'll have to get through. Valpo is a stable program and they have good players coming through right now. Plus, they have good players with size. Good players with size beat good players without size. The kids have rivalries but I don't. Our goal is to implement all of our offenses and defenses. We want to find the top third of our players. We want to get ready for the end of the season.”

ON HIS PLAYERS IN OTHER SPORTS - “I want our kids to play other sorts. Other than Courtney Perry, everyone plays another sport. Pruzin and Sertich play tennis. but just because you play another sport, does not mean you don't work on your next sport. They come out and they think they're in condition, which they're not. They think they don't have to work on skills when they're playing the other sport, which they do. Annie Kvachkoff played volleyball. Nancy Cowan was a tremendous athlete. But she shot the ball 300 times a night during that season. When you play more than one sport, you have to do more to work every day, not less. You can't use one sport as a an excuse not to work on another. That's the way a lot look at it.”

ON HIS NEW FRESHMAN COACHES -- “Gail's a graduate of Crown Point high school (1999) and Purdue University. Allyson is a past captain (2001). They both are. She's graduated Purdue University. Right now she's working in a special ed situation in the Griffith school district. Gail's working here in mathematics. I wanted Gail to do this for awhile. I sat down with Gail and we looked through some names and Allyson's name jumped out.

“Those two will have the freshman program. We talk all the time. They're two women. And the girls need role models for woman. Allyson is aggressive. Gail was hesitant because she feels my expectations are really high. She said, 'God, I don't know if I can go in with coach May again.' But she's been terrific. She's a natural. She's dived right in. They will make a great team.”

2004-2005 CROWN POINT Girls Basketball Preview

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith