Women’s basketball coach Jim Foster might be able to put together all the right pieces this season to play his preferred game style: up-tempo basketball.
The Ohio State women’s basketball team will kick off its season Friday at the Schottenstein Center against Butler, and all signs are pointing to a strong, fast-paced year from the Buckeyes.
After a productive off-season, Foster and senior teammates Star Allen and Ashlee Trebilcock said they are ready to get the season underway.
“I say it to coach every day, how excited I am that games are about to start, because I’m sick of just playing against our own people every day,” Trebilcock said at a press conference Wednesday.
She will get that chance soon, and Foster will get his chance to showcase his new up-tempo style of play. The keys to this style will be the depth of this year’s team and the addition of a phenomenal freshman point guard.
In addition to Jantel Lavender, the reigning Big Ten player of the year, the Buckeyes are returning many players from last year’s Big Ten regular season championship team, including four returning starters.
Foster knows what he has in Lavender, but he also said he has three other post players who can run the floor almost as well as her. A healthy Allen and the development of junior Andrea Walker and sophomore Sarah Schulze has given the coach four viable post players for the Buckeyes – essential for the up-tempo play he wants to achieve.
Trebilcock noticed the team’s improvement in their first scrimmage against Miami University.
“There wasn’t any like ‘Awe man, she’s in. I got to play with her’,” Trebilcock said. “There was never that kind of bad spot.”
But maybe the most important piece to the Bucks new offense is their new point guard, Samantha Prahalis. The freshman was a McDonald’s All-American and New York’s High School Player of the Year.
“We have a gifted young player,” Foster said of Prahalis.
Even the seniors have taken notice of what Prahalis could bring to the team.
“I think she’s awesome,” Allen said. “She can make a lot of things happen on the court.”
Prahalis has limited her mistakes and has shown the ability to drive and score. It is one of the reasons Foster has the confidence to make her a starter.
“If I’m going to start a freshman point guard, she has earned it,” Foster said.
Freshman Stokes sidelined with injury
The other freshman on this year’s team, Amber Stokes, will be out for the first 10-12 weeks of the season after suffering a dislocated shoulder during the team’s scrimmage against Miami (Ohio).
“Right now it’s somebody else’s opportunity and a couple of players are taking advantage of that,” Foster said about Stokes’ injury.
Foster said her eventual return will give the team another dynamic option on the floor, but her time out will help her understand the game better.
Signing Day
The early signing period opened Wednesday and the Buckeyes wasted no time in their search to reload and try to keep to their winning ways next year.
Coach Foster announced the signing of two highly touted recruits to National Letters of Intent Wednesday.
Emilee Harmon is a 6-foot-2 forward from Pickerington Central High School. Ranked the No. 63 recruit in the country on ESPN’s HoopGurlz 100, Harmon was invited to play at USA Basketball’s U-18 Team Olympic Training Camp as an underclassman, one of only three underclassmen to receive that recognition this summer.
The second future Buckeye, Brianna Sanders, is also an Ohio product. A 5-foot-11 guard from Princeton High School in Cincinnati, Sanders was the No. 1 prospect in Ohio, according to the Ohio Girls Basketball Report, until she suffered a torn ACL that forced her to miss half her junior season.
Foster sees Harmon as a player capable of punishing teams for double-teaming their star, Lavender, with her ability to score from inside or out on the wing.
Foster is looking forward to seeing Sanders play after her recovery. He thinks the injury has made her a better player because it forced her to become a better 3-point shooter. He said Sanders has “huge basketball in front of her.”
Kyle Fischer can be reached at [email protected].
