Low-posts step up to fill big shoes this season
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 10/07/2009
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Experience in the low-post positions will be the biggest question mark for the women’s basketball team heading into this season.
The Boilermakers lost five seniors from a season ago, four of them forwards between 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-4. Two of those players, Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton and Danielle Campbell, were drafted in the WNBA draft.
When coach Sharon Versyp was asked who has impressed her the most in the offseason, she mentioned sophomore Chelsea Jones and junior Sam Woods. Both are over 6-foot-2-inches.
“Chelsea Jones [had] the biggest transformation, mentally, physically, the whole gamut,” Versyp said. “[She’s] very confident. [She] has just improved her game immensely.
“I think Sam Woods’ redshirt year was very, very good for her in every possible sense of the word. Same thing, mentally, emotionally, physically, academically, with her being an engineer.”
Still, Versyp said that sophomore forward Alex Guyton has a lower-leg injury that might keep her out a couple of months, further thinning out the Boilers’ low-post corps.
Fortunately for Purdue, the Boilermakers have an easier non-conference schedule compared to last year, which featured games against Stanford, Maryland and Texas.
“We knew we’d lose five seniors,” Versyp said. “So you do have to schedule to where you have to have an opportunity or a chance to have some winnable games to build their confidence.”
From a guard’s perspective, sophomore Brittany Rayburn said they’re taking things one day at a time, and she thinks the forwards will surprise skeptics.
“I feel like everybody who’s in the post position has stepped up,” Rayburn said. “Everybody is ready to take that challenge, and everyone else is saying that we’re so young under the basket, but they’ve stepped up to the challenge and they want to prove to everybody that they can fill those shoes.”