Face of Crown Point Lady Bulldogs to change in 2008

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
03-15-2007

CROWN POINT (03-15-2007) - Any 2008 prediction on what Crown Point would do in girls basketball must change with the retirement of head coach Tom May.  May's departure from the bench may or may not end an era of Crown Point success.  May only had three losing seasons in 27 years.  CP was 20-21 the last two seasons and those were considered bad years.  The standard was set with 15 sectionals, seven regionals, four state finals appearances and two state titles.

There is a concern that, with May not in control of the program, what was a bad season at 10-11 will become average and 5-17 will become a bad year.  With the emphasis on full court defense, the Lady Bulldogs were never going to be too bad.  It was bad offense that took CP down to .500 the last two seasons.

But there's a lot of change in girls basketball with coaching positions suddenly open at CP, Munster, Hammond and Washington Township.  It was a down season almost everywhere.  No NW Indiana team except 1A Oregon-Davis survived regional play for the second season in succession.  Anybody can make a quick rise in 2008 and Crown Point could be in position to do that.  But now, there's a lot of questions.

Why did Tom May retire?

You've got to go sometime.  Long time coaches Tom Megyesi and Greg Kirby also retired in the last three seasons and I would not be surprised to see Chesterton's Jack Campbell (19 seasons) hang it up soon.  Clinton Prairie's Connie Garrett retired this season after 37 years.  Coaching is a addiction and I'm not sure it's a good one.  I'm not sure you have a real life if you are a head varsity basketball coach at a large school.  I don't think there's any hidden reason behind the resignation and May always said he liked the people he's working for and with.  It was just time to do something else.

Why would a new coach want to come to Crown Point to coach girls basketball?

Forget the program's honored history.  CPHS has 2,300 students now and may top out near 3,000 in the next 10 years.  The facilities are virtually new and teaching positions at a large school can be found.  The school is in the Duneland Athletic Conference where you face prime competition in most seasons.  Crown Point is a nice place.  It still feels like a homey small town.  It's going to get too large for comfort, but that won't happen for 15-20 years and your kids will be grown by then.

CP has only one starter returning (team MVP Daniela Tarailo), but there are a lot of quality girls in the Class of 2009 (next year's juniors) and the seventh and eighth graders are called one of the best back-to-back classes to come through CP in 30 years.

Why would a coach not want to come to Crown Point to coach girls basketball?

Forget the program's honored history; they are in the Duneland Athletic Conference.  Merrillville and Michigan City have become strong programs.  Portage is on the rise and Valparaiso will make a comeback sooner than later.  The DAC's double round robin schedule takes up 14 games of the 20-game season and then you have the same teams in the sectional.  It's very hard to get out of that maze and be the last team standing.  You could roll up more wins and sectional titles at other schools.  The days of Valparaiso or anyone else dominating the DAC are over and sectional 2 is largely an all-DAC sectional.

Who is the new coach going to be?

We'll know fairly quickly.  If long time assistant Scott Reid wants the job, conventional logic says he'll get it and he should.  He knows all the players and he knows the league.  For CP to surprise anybody next season, Reid would probably have to be the coach.  A new coach will need a period of adjustment, and with Michigan City (22-2) returning the entire perimeter and Portage and Valpo returning the entire varsity, that adjustment will be a bumpy road.

For obvious reasons, CP needs to start hiring women coaches for girls teams, but JV coach Sarah Zondor is probably too young to be considered and Boone Grove's Candy Wilson and Merrillville's Amy Govert are in good situations and probably would not leave them to come to Crown Point.

What exactly does CP have returning?

Athletic ability.  Tarailo, Maegan Maloney and Sydnee Reeves are good players in the 5-foot-9, 5-foot-10 range who can run and press.  They all have two more seasons.  Guards Flori Garcia and Jessica Martinez are small, athletic guards who also have two more seasons.  All except Garcia played extensively this year on the varsity.  Center Nikki Brown is a 5-11 junior who did not play much this season but she's the only post player CP has returning.  There are other JV players with promise, if not the athletic ability of the five sophomores.  The well-regarded junior high classes are said to be loaded at all positions.

What does CP not have returning?

That's the problem.  There is not a natural lead guard at the high school level.  There hasn't been one for two years.  Nobody's offense works very well under pressure without at least one player with above average dribbling and passing skills.  CP grad Cassie Pruzin (2005) is in the national finals at lead guard for Division III DePauw and CP was 17-5 her last season.  Since she graduated, they've been a .500 team and it's no coincidence.

CP's 1997 state finals team had no one average as many as 11 points a game, but they had three lead guards in Katey Marsh, Kelly O'Brien and Jennifer Sanders.  A 16th seed will win an NCAA tournament game before an Indiana high school team wins a state title without a good lead guard.

Can't you just make a good player into a lead guard?

I don't think so.  But Chesterton and Portage simply put their best player at lead guard the last two seasons and won sectional titles.  CP did that with Tarailo and they may do it again next season.  But Portage was wiped out by South Bend Washington in the regional, in part, because they had no true lead guard to break the press.

I believe that the ability to play lead guard is a gift that can be developed, but cannot be taught.  I don't blame the girls who tried for CP the last two seasons, because you either can dribble and distribute the ball at varsity speed or you can't.  There may be a half dozen true lead guards in all of NW Indiana and unfortunately for everyone else in the DAC, Michigan City has one (TaKenya Nixon) and she has two more seasons.

The hardest thing to do in basketball is to improve your dribbling and passing skills.  But that's what CP needs more than anything else.

So stop stalling.  Will CP get above .500 next season?

Maybe.  They have a new coach coming in and only one senior.  That's not a blueprint for success.  Assuming the same 20-game schedule they played this season, Michigan City, Merrillville and Portage are still going to be hard for CP to handle.  The Lady Bulldogs could go 0-6 against those three.  But CP could go 6-0 in non conference games.  They were 5-1 this year.  If they can get season splits with Chesterton and Valparaiso, I'd say 11-9 and 12-8 is likely.  But they're going to need a good draw to win the sectional with Portage, Merrillville and Valpo there.

If CP makes a good choice as the new coach, the Lady Bulldogs could be league and sectional champs in 2009.  There is that much ability in the program.

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Revised: March 17, 2007 .