Women’s basketball ready for expectations

The University of South Dakota women’s basketball season is approaching, but coach Amy Williams isn’t worried about games today — she’s focused on eliminating weak practices.

The faces aren’t much different this year under the practice court hoop — only one player left from last year, two transfer players moved in and one first-year joined.

“We’ve started off with several really good, sharp practices, and then we didn’t have our best practice Friday,” said Williams, the third-year head coach. “It made coach Williams a little antsy over the weekend.”

Williams said her team cannot afford practices without high effort or improvement, because the team hasn’t earned the Summit League-favorite status yet.

This year the team was not picked as the top Summit League women’s team. The award was given to South Dakota State University, and USD was picked second.

“We don’t put a whole lot of weight on those preseason polls,” Williams said. “There might be some people who thought the second pick might be too high for our buckle.”

But four starters are back who aren’t afraid of the Summit League stage: junior Tia Hemiller, senior Nicole Seekamp, senior Lisa Loeffler and senior Raeshel Contreras.

Contreras said the team won’t take rankings personally.

“Coach Williams came in the next day and told us to ignore that and focus on getting better in practice,” she said.

For both Contreras and Williams, the first place to look for improvement is defense.

“Fortunately, we were the No. 1 scoring team in the conference last year,” Williams said. “But we don’t want to have to win games 92-90. On the defensive end of the floor, that’s where we feel we can make our best improvements and not have to depend so much on having to score a lot.”

So the coaching staff decided to practice defense — and lots of it.

The team spent its first week of practice doing what players called “Camp Defense.” The practices for one week were exclusively defensive drills. Players didn’t touch the basketball.

“Got to play defense first,” Loeffler said. “Hopefully those will get us going on that side of the ball.”

After defense, the team has to figure how to replace Polly Harrington, the team’s starting center and last season’s Summit League tournament Most Valuable Player.

Williams said to make up for Harrington, three Coyotes will have to step up: Loeffler, junior Margaret McCloud and first-year Kate Liveringhouse.

“I’ve been extremely proud of the offseason McCloud and Loeffler have had,” Williams said. “I’m hoping those two can really shine. We have a huge hole inside with the graduation of Polly Harrington.”

Loeffler said she did a lot of one-on-one this summer with the coaches, which has boosted her confidence.

“I’ve been told I need to shoot more,” Loeffler said. “Being a leader out there, and helping team know where they need to be out on the court, doing the little things.”

Loeffler’s improvement has been going well, Contreras said.

“Lisa’s ballin’,” Contreras said. “Just like everybody else, she put in a lot of workouts this summer, and she’s stepping up.”

The Coyotes are just looking to get ready for game one, which is slated for Nov. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa against Drake University.

“We just want to control every day what we can control, and that’s the process,” Williams said. “If we can fall in love with that process, we can be satisfied regardless of outcomes.”

(Photo: The University of South Dakota women’s basketball team celebrates after winning the Summit League Tournament March 11 in the Sioux Falls Arena. The Coyotes will take on Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa Nov. 14. File photo / The Volante)