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Stokes Turns Focus from USA Gold to
ECU's Initial C-USA Hoops Campaign
By
Ron Ferrell
Pirates' Chest Editor
©2001 Pirates' Chest
 Fresh
off a successful stint as an assistant coach with USA Basketball's gold
medal-winning World University Games squad, East Carolina women's basketball
coach Dee Stokes is primed and ready to get a young but talented group of
Pirates off to a quick start.
Stokes, now in her fourth year at the helm of the Pirate program,
assisted Virginia coach Debbie Ryan with the select group of collegians that
took part in the August games.
The USA went 7-1 in the games held in Daegu, Korea. The USA squad was
upset in the second round of pool play, but came back to win six consecutive
games in impressive fashion, including two wins over local favorite China,
the last of which came in the gold medal game.
"It was a good trip overall," Stokes said recently. "We won the gold
medal so that made it even better."
Stokes attributed the USA's success to the willingness of the team's
players to accept individual roles less prominent than the ones to which
they were accustomed on their college teams.
"I was very impressed by the players and the unselfishness that they
showed. All of these players are stars on their respective college teams,
all starters, all play a lot of minutes. For them to have to adjust and
maybe be in a role where you don't play as many minutes, you don't start
every game, is sometimes hard for kids that are elite players.
"We really didn't have any problems with that. Everybody was unselfish,
very giving. I really enjoyed being around that kind of player and that
group of kids. It was real rewarding on that end."
The USA squad had only two weeks together before the games started and
Stokes faced the same kind of quick start when the Pirates began
practice at 8 a.m. on Oct. 13 with a squad that will feature seven
newcomers.
"We had trials in May and then we came back and practiced for a week
before we headed to China," said Stokes. "With only two weeks of practice it
is quite difficult.
"You have a lot of stuff you have to put in. You have your philosophy,
the way you like to do things, the way you want to play defense, the way you
want the offense to run. We put in a lot of stuff and those kids really
caught on quickly and they prepared well."
Stokes can only hope her Pirate squad responds in the same fashion as they have only
a short time before exhibition contests begin.
"When we start practice October 13 we've got three weeks until our first
exhibition game," she said in the days leading up to the start of
official drills. "That is quick and I've got to get seven
newcomers adjusted to collegiate basketball in three weeks. It will be a
challenge for us."
Players aren't the only ones who learned from the USA experience. Stokes is
hoping to take what she gleaned from the time working with Ryan and Iowa
head coach Lisa Bluder and put it to use as the Pirates prepare for their
first season in Conference USA.
"I learned things from the way we went about getting ready," Stokes said.
"When you are teaching your own philosophy there are some things that you
really emphasize that you want to stick to. Every day you want to do
something that emphasizes your philosophy whether it be defensively or
offensively.
"Something we are really going to emphasize this year is screening. I
think we have always been a horrible screening team, I mean really bad at
screening. We are going to emphasize that from day one. We are going to do
it every day if we have to because we have got to be able to get each other
open."
Stokes believes screening will be important because this could be the
best shooting squad she has had at ECU.
The Pirates return no seniors and only one player, junior Tali Robich,
that started more than 10 games a year ago. Robich is also the only member
of the squad that was a double-figure scorer.
Also returning are sophomores Courtney Willis, Alisha Bishop and Angela
Sye. The Pirates' seven-woman freshman class includes Ayana McWilliams, Kris
Richardson, Jennifer Jackson, Samantha Pankey, Shanita Sutton, Brandi Renfro
and Kim Enoch.
"This is probably the best shooting team I have had since I've been
here," Stokes said. "Everybody can really shoot the ball so we are going to
try and use that to our advantage. We have never had as many pure shooters.
At every position we have someone that can really shoot."
This will be the first squad Stokes has had where every player was
recruited to ECU by her staff. She said she has been pleased by the
togetherness the group has started to show and she expects the group to be
very competitive in C-USA.
"The freshmen have really taken hold of the concept that 'this is our
program and we want this program to be good,'" said Stokes. "We haven't
always had that but now they really believe that this is their program. When
you have everybody on that same page hopefully you will have some great
success."
Send an e-mail message to Ron Ferrell of the PIRATES' CHEST.
02/23/2007 02:03:24 PM
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