Article published October 30, 2009
Rockets' redux of '08 won't fly, Cullop asserts
Tricia Cullop's first challenge for the 2009-10 basketball season will be to polish a new pre-game speech.
A year ago, as the rookie women's basketball coach at the University of Toledo, Cullop would merely remind her players that they were picked to finish last in the MAC's West Division, if not among all teams in the English-speaking world.
She kept repeating it and the Rockets kept winning. When all was said and done they won 18 times, went 11-5 in league play, and finally were eliminated in a fairly competitive game against powerhouse Bowling Green in the MAC Tournament semifinals.
What a difference a year makes. MAC media members submitted their preseason poll votes on Wednesday and this time UT is picked to win the West.
Actually, Cullop has been rehearsing her new speech since players arrived for the school year and began individual workouts, so the Rockets probably won't be shocked the first time they hear it on game night.
"I didn't know where we'd be picked in the poll, but I figured it would be higher than last season," Cullop said. "So I'd already been preaching that what we did last year wouldn't be good enough this time around. I was a little different and what we ran was a little different, but everybody has the scouting report now. We won't be surprising anybody, so we have to do things better."It would be hard to imagine Cullop coaching any better than she did a year ago upon inheriting a once-proud program that had sunk into the quicksand of five straight losing seasons and three straight years of six or fewer wins in league play.
Forget the X's and O's. She brought intensity and pace to the table. She demanded excellence. More than anything, she raised the bar by insisting the players be accountable. The team belonged to them and would be only as successful as they wanted it to be. The Rockets, in other words, would start winning only when they became tired of losing.
"It was a tribute to the players that they bought in," said Cullop, whose X's are that you run the floor on offense after both makes and misses and whose O's are that you play intense, pressure defense. "We sold them on playing a fast-paced, high-energy style that they'd enjoy and our fans would enjoy. I wanted them to always walk off the floor exhausted."
If there was a downside it was that sometimes they were exhausted before the final horn sounded. There were nights that the roster just didn't have the depth to pull it off.
This season, UT returns nine players who represent 97.4 percent of the scoring and 95.6 percent of the rebounding from a year ago. All five starters are back, including senior forward Tanika Mays, who should be among the premier players in the MAC; sophomore point guard Naama Shafir, an Israeli who at times was shockingly good as a true freshman, and senior Lisa Johnson, a post player who has few peers in running the floor.
In addition, Cullop has four highly touted freshmen as well as a junior transfer who will be eligible to play in December. The Rockets should now have the numbers to play over foul trouble and fatigue late in games.
Cullop played at Purdue under the highly regarded Lin Dunn. The UT coach said she was neither the most athletic player nor the best shooter, but that Dunn brought out the very best effort she had to give on any given day.
"And that's what I ask of my players," Cullop said. "I pride myself on getting the best effort they can give me. That's my job. It doesn't mean they make every shot, it just means they give their best effort, consistently, and especially on defense. You give me that and we'll win games."
She proved that a year ago when no one expected it. Now, suddenly, it is expected and Cullop will be putting a lot of thought into that new pregame speech.
Contact Blade sports columnist
Dave Hackenberg at:
dhack@theblade.com
or 419-724-6398.
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