2010-11 Women's Basketball Media Guide - University of Denver ...

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YEAR IN REVIEW Just two seasons after assuming leadership of the Denver women’s basketball program, head coach Erik Johnson has led the Pioneers to two winning seasons and given the Pioneers a new team identity through the implementation of his basketball philosophy. Johnson’s emphasis on toughness helped the 2009- 0 Pioneer squad finish with an 18-13 overall record and lead the Sun Belt Conference in field goal percentage, free-throw percentage, three-point percentage, and defensive rebounds. The Pioneers 48.2 percent accuracy from the field ranked third in the nation, while all-conference sophomore Kaetlyn Murdoch (Temple, Texas) finished fifth in the nation with a 62.6 percent field-goal percentage and 11th in blocked shots per game with 3.0. Toughness turned out to be especially crucial down the stretch for the Pioneers, as they finished the season with only six active players after losing junior Abbey Leichleiter (Jackson, Wyo.), and freshman Laura Palmere (Denver, Colo.) to injuries. DU’s 8 wins overall and 2 victories in the SBC are the most by the Pioneers since 2006-07, when the team went 20- overall and 2-6 in the SBC. The Pioneers earned a No. 4 seed at the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, and defeated the No. 3 seed University of Louisiana Monroe to advance to the second round. Denver battled New Orleans through 4 lead changes and a dozen ties, but with the score knotted 46-46 with four minutes remaining, UNO’s Candice McGee sparked a 7-0 Privateers’ run over the following 3:30 and iced the game with a pair of free throws down the stretch. Despite a game-high 7 points from Murdoch and a double-double from redshirt junior Brianna Culberson (Jefferson City, Mo.), Denver was upset by the Privateers 55-48. “I’m very proud of our players who had to fight through a lot of adversity this year,” Johnson said. “Injuries and our depth forced some players to play unbelievable amounts of minutes, and for us to end up with 8 wins, a 2-6 conference record, and to rank second in the nation in field goal percentage is a great testament to our team’s perseverance.” 2009- 0 DU Women’s Basketball Team (Top Row L to R: Lisa Faulkner, Yvonne Hawkins, Abbey Leichleiter, Kaetlyn Murdoch, Erik Johnson, Anne Jasperson, Sarah Feeney, Shelley Sheetz, Chris Brann. Bottom Row L to R: Morgan Shell, Laura Palmere, Ashly Robinson, Britteni Rice, Brianna Culberson, Patricia Gortarez, Emiko Smith.) The Pioneers opened the season with a shaky -5 start, but after a 66-6 victory on the road against San Jose State, Denver rattled off nine straight victories to improve its overall record through 5 games to 0-5 and its conference record to a perfect 5-0. DU finished the regular season 8-8, but carried a four-game winning streak into their final game of the season in the SBC Tournament. The Pioneers return their top three scorers next season, including Murdoch, junior Britteni Rice (Pampa, Texas) and Culberson, who averaged 5.8, 4.5, and 3.5 points per game, respectively. Freshman Emiko Smith (Los Angeles, Calif.) also rejoins the Pioneers next year at the point guard position after leading both the team and the conference with 5.0 assists per game. Denver will have to replace graduating seniors Ashly Robinson (Bloomington, Minn.) and Anne Jasperson (Corvallis, Ore.) next season. Robinson’s post presence will be missed, as she finished her senior season averaging 7.4 points per game and a team-high 7.7 rebounds per game. However, the Pioneers will add six incoming freshmen next season in Maiya Michel, Quincey Noonan, Alison Janecek, Chaunise Powell, Brianna Tisch and Desiree Hunter, and sophomore Morgan Shell (Marble Falls, Texas) will join the team after sitting the 2009- 0 season due to NCAA transfer regulations. “We could not be happier about this recruiting class,” Johnson said. “This group brings us skill, speed, athleticism, size and depth at all positions. It is a huge step forward for our program to be able to sign a class of six quality players, all of whom were our top choices.” DENVER IN THE NCAA Rank Actual National Leader Actual Scoring Offense (332 ranked) 86 62.6 Oral Roberts 85. Scoring Defense (332 ranked) 38 62.2 UCONN 46.2 Scoring Margin (332 ranked) 60 0.4 UCONN 34.9 FG Percentage (332 ranked) 3 48.2 UCONN 5 . FG Percentage Defense (332 ranked) 57 39.4 UCONN 30.0 FT Percentage (332 ranked) 6 76.0 Drexel 80.8 Rebound Margin (332 ranked) 67 3.2 Liberty 3.9 3-Pt FGs Per Game (332 ranked) 267 3.9 Morehead St. 0.3 W-L Percentage (332 ranked) 0 58. UCONN 00.0 Assists Per Game (332 ranked) 60 4.5 UCONN 9.8 Blocked Shots Per Game (332 ranked) 33 4.8 Baylor 7.5 Steals Per Game (332 ranked) 33 5. Oral Roberts 5.7 Turnovers Per Game (332 ranked) 230 8.9 Oklahoma St. 2.5 Personal Fouls Per Game (332 ranked) 2 2.9 UCONN 2.2 Assist Turnover Ratio (332 ranked) 27 0.77 UCONN .37 Turnover Margin (332 ranked) 329 -6.9 Georgetown 8. 2 Three Pt FG Defense (332 ranked) 200 32.5 Savannah St. 24. 38 www.DenverPioneers.com
By Richard Chapman, DU Communications Today’s pop quiz is a math question. If the DU women’s basketball team can win 8 of 3 games this season using only six to nine players, how many games next season can the team win with 5 players? Hint: Two players graduated but seven return next year. One veteran will be back from knee injury, a blue-chip transfer will be eligible and six shiny new freshmen recruits are inbound from California, Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington and Colorado. That totals 5 eager Pioneers. Unsolvable problem, you say? Tell that to head coach Erik Johnson. He’s the one who week after week this season had to figure out how as few as six players were going to sprint fast enough to keep up with opponents whose depth allowed their best players adequate rest. It wasn’t easy to solve. “There were lots of times where one of my starters would get tired and I’d just call time out,” Johnson says. “I couldn’t sub them.” Nor could he play as aggressively as he wished. “I really wanted to mount more defensive pressure, but I thought, ‘If I do, Kaetlyn [Murdoch] is going to be out of the game with fouls or we’re going to be so tired that by halftime, we’ll be done.’” Scratch that strategy. More fast-breaks, maybe? Nope. “That other gear just wasn’t there,” he admits. Which raised in Johnson’s mind the metaphysical question: “Is as fast as you can run for 37 minutes as fast as you can run for 27 minutes?” Translation: Is it better to rest a star and play her fewer minutes or play a star longer on little rest? Hmmmm. “I’m proud of how we managed it, but, boy, there were a lot of challenges.” www.DenverPioneers.com Like matching up DU players with the team they faced. Johnson didn’t worry about matchups much because, well, who he had in the lineup was pretty much everybody he had. Nor could he hold his players accountable for maximum effort. “It’s human nature. If you know you’re going to be out there all day, you can’t muster that same level [of energy], so we have a tendency to play a little bit safe.” Except that “a little bit safe” isn’t DU women’s basketball. It’s relentless pressure and speed. So Johnson and company emphasized defensive rebounds and surgical time-outs and offensive efficiency and questioning the time keeper and picking fights with the ref and any other trick he could think of to rest his starters and keep DU in the game. It worked pretty well. Eighteen wins and two rounds into the Sun Belt Conference post-season tournament proved that. “At no time did they ever quit or get lazy,” Johnson says proudly looking back. Still, it wasn’t unusual for his team to come limping into practice, so battered, bruised and spent from a previous game that all they could do was shoot free throws, talk strategy and recover. Which is why the theme for next season is “no compromise,” Johnson says. “Next year, we’ll have that depth, and my job is going to be how to use it to our advantage without disrupting some of the really good things we did this year.” Among those “really good things” was making their shots, at which DU women excelled, finishing second in the nation in field-goal percentage at 48.2 percent. They also were second in the nation in fewest number of fouls per game ( 2.9) and 5th in free-throw percentage at 76. “If we can add the elements of more transition shots, more turnovers by the other team, more offensive rebounds, we have a chance to be pretty good,” Johnson says. All that plus be YEAR IN REVIEW When DU out-rebounds opponents 5-6 When DU is out-rebounded 3-7 When rebounds are the same 0-0 When DU commits more turnovers 4- When DU forces more turnovers 4-2 When Turnovers are the same 0-0 When DU has more free throw attempts 3-6 When Opp. has more free throw attempts 3-7 When free throw attempts are the same -0 When DU shoots 50% or better from the field 10-7 When DU shoots less than 50% from the field 8-6 When Opp. shoots 50% or better from the field 0-2 When Opp. shoots less than 50% from the field 18-11 When DU shoots better than Opp. from the field 16-9 When Opp. shoots better than DU from the field 2-4 When DU shoots 40% or better from 3-point range 2-6 When DU shoots less than 40% from 3-point range 6-7 When DU shoots better than Opp. from 3-point range 4-5 When DU shoots 80% or better from the line 8-6 When DU shoots less than 80% from the line 0-7 When DU bench outscores Opp. bench 3-2 When Opp. bench outscores DU bench 3- When bench scoring is the same 2-0 When 2 or more players score in double figures 18-13 When 3 or more players score in double figures 15-9 When 4 or more players score in double figures 6-4 When 5 or more players score in double figures 3-1 In November -3 In December 7-2 In January 5-3 In February 4-4 In March - In April 0-0 On Monday 2-0 On Tuesday 0- On Wednesday 7-5 On Thursday 0-0 On Friday 0- On Saturday 6-3 On Sunday 3-3 Starting Line-Up Robinson, Murdoch, Culberson, Rice, Smith 8- 2 Robinson, Murdoch, Culberson, Palmere, Smith 0- a “great defensive rebounding team and shoot high percentage with really good assists.” In other words, do better with more instead of trying to do better with less. He figures having 15 players ought to be a big help. No matter how many games the team plays. Do the math. PIONEERS IN THE NCAA Player Rank Actual National Leader Actual Points Per Game (250 ranked) Kaetlyn Murdoch 04 5.8 Alysha Clark, Middle Tennessee 28.3 Britteni Rice 63 4.5 Rebounds Per Game (250 ranked) Ashly Robinson 34 7.7 Judie Lomax, Columbia 4.2 Kaetlyn Murdoch 65 7.5 Assists Per Game (250 ranked) Emiko Smith 46 5.0 Courtney Vandersloot, Gonzaga 9.4 Blocked Shots Per Game (250 ranked) Kaetlyn Murdoch 3.0 Brittney Griner, Baylor 6.4 FG Percentage (250 ranked) Kaetlyn Murdoch 3 62.6 Carolyn Swords, Boston College 66.4 Brianna Culberson 24 53. FT Percentage (250 ranked) Britteni Rice 74 8 .8 Kelsey Luna, Indiana State 93.3 Brianna Culberson 37 78.8 Assist-Turnover Ratio (250 ranked) Emiko Smith 49 .69 Asriel Rolfe, UALR 2.98 39
Page 3 and 4: GENERAL INFORMATION Location ......
Page 5 and 6: www.DenverPioneers.com nicole DUPES
Page 7 and 8: www.DenverPioneers.com MAGNESS AREN
Page 10 and 11: BUILT PIONEER TOUGH “Defining tou
Page 12 and 13: HEAD COACH ERIK JOHNSON erik JOHNSO
Page 14 and 15: IN LOVING MEMORY OF DAVIS JOHNSON O
Page 16 and 17: ASSISTANT COACH SHELLEY SHEETZ shel
Page 18 and 19: DIRECTOR OF BASKETBALL OPERATIONS C
Page 20 and 21: 20 0- ROSTERS NUMERICAL ROSTER No.
Page 23: 2009-10: Started all 31 games • f
Page 27: 2009-10: Started and played in 30 g
Page 31: 2009-10: Played in 30 games, averag
Page 35 and 36: 2009-10: Started all 3 games, leadi
Page 37 and 38: www.DenverPioneers.com chaunise POW
Page 42 and 43: RESULTS 2009-10 RESULTS (18-13 Over
Page 44 and 45: FINAL STATS (HOME/ROAD/NEUTRAL) HOM
Page 46 and 47: BOX SCORES GAME FIVE: COLORADO 84,
Page 48 and 49: BOX SCORES GAME 13: DENVER 65, ARKA
Page 50 and 51: BOX SCORES Official GAME Basketball
Page 52: BOX SCORES GAME 29: DENVER 76, LOUI
Page 55 and 56: EAST DIVISION Sun Belt Overall Team
Page 57 and 58: ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK TROJANS Locati
Page 60 and 61: PIONEER HISTORY 1969-70 Pioneer wom
Page 62 and 63: HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES linda RAUNIG
Page 64 and 65: INDIVIDUAL CAREER RECORDS GAMES PLA
Page 66 and 67: INDIVIDUAL GAME RECORDS SCORING 40
Page 68 and 69: ALL-TIME COACHING RECORDS OVERALL C
Page 70 and 71: ALL-TIME VERSUS OPPONENTS FIRST OVE
Page 72 and 73: ALL-TIME SERIES RECORDS COLORADO CO
Page 74 and 75: ALL-TIME SERIES RECORDS 02/ 3/ 0 A
Page 76 and 77: YEAR-BY-YEAR RESULTS 974-75 (2- 2,
Page 78 and 79: YEAR-BY-YEAR RESULTS 02/26/92 AIR F
Page 80 and 81: YEAR-BY-YEAR RESULTS 2/30/07 at Neb
Page 82: ALL-TIME HOME-AWAY-NEUTRAL NON-CONF

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