When head coach Keith Ferguson said his goodbyes to the Barton Community College women’s basketball team early this week for the Christmas holiday, you couldn’t blame him if he whispered in a player’s ear about staying fit.
After all, the Lady Cougars, 7-6 overall, take a five-game winning streak into the break as they overcame a 2-6 start to begin playing their best ball of the young season.
And now, a long hiatus ensues. Barton doesn’t return to the action until Jan. 5, when BCC travels to Concordia to play Cloud in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Western Division opener.
OK, so over the break, one can only read Facebook messages on a cell phone or on a computer for so long.
Right?
OK, so how long can one lay around the house, play video games or watch television and just chill?
Instead of becoming a couch potato over the holidays, Ferguson wants his players to get out of the house, hit the gym, maybe implement a daily fitness/shooting regimen and still enjoy time with family and friends.
It can be done.
“We talk a lot with our players about when they go home, we want them to practice with their high school team and get with your AAU coach,” Ferguson said. “I love it when they go back home and practice with their high school team.
“I think it’s good for the high school team, and I think it’s good for our kids because they go back and show how much better they’ve gotten in the semester that they’ve been here. It keeps them active.”
Even though Ferguson doesn’t expect all of his players to become gym rats over the break, he wouldn’t mind if each player dedicated a 100 shots per day and maybe as many free throws to try to stay in rhythm.
“They’ll be in a gym at least running up and down the court a little bit, but we’re going to have a lot of full-court sprints when they get back,” Ferguson said.              “There’s no way when they go home and shoot in a gym by themselves, that they can meet the level of intensity that we bring every day in practice that we do in staying in shape.”
The Lady Cougars have had different players step up all season, although the three constants have been shooting guard Shea Shoemaker, forward Christina Caddy and post player Dionne Harris. Couple that trio with guard-forward Alisha Fanshier and point guard Raven Adams and when those five are hitting on all cylinders, the Lady Cougars could be hard to contain.
“Those three really give us another level of being able to run,” Ferguson said of Harris, Caddy and Shea Shoemaker. “Even when Netanya (Jackson, a freshman post player) is in the game, she can get the rebound and make the long outlet pass.
“It’s really fun to watch those three because they can really get up and down the floor on both sides. I think they’re just starting to figure out hard it is to guard people, and they can guard as well as they can score.”
Harris is averaging 11.5 points and has a team-high 7.9 rebounds, leading the team with 103 in appearing in all 13 games this season. Caddy has averaged 10.4 points, shot 72.7 percent from the foul line (32-for-44) and averaged 5.8 rebounds.
“Dionne, you’re just waiting for her to do something,” Ferguson said. “She’s always doing something special, and she needs to keep letting the game come to her and when she does, she’s pretty good.”
While Shea Shoemaker has averaged 7.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and leads the team in steals with 28, the emergence of Fanshier, who missed the first seven games because of a suspension, has been immeasurable.
“With Alisha back, obviously we are more patient and have more players that can score,” Ferguson said. “It’s another level she brings because she’s been there before.”
An honorable mention all-conference selection last season, Fanshier has a team-leading 11.7 scoring average in her six games this season. She is averaging 5.8 rebounds, and has hit 40 percent of her field goals (24-for-60).
And then there’s Adams, who is averaging 9.7 points and a team-high 4.3 assists while shooting 43.8 percent from the floor (42-for-96) and 42.9 percent on 3-pointers (12-for-28).
“I think when Raven plays pretty well, we’re pretty good,” Ferguson said. “Alisha is going to bring everything every night and Christina (Caddy) is really active, but when Raven plays really well, we play really well.
“We really feed off her and when we start going on runs and doing some things, it’s usually because of (Adams). Not so much her scoring, but her getting us into stuff, like getting her into our offense.”
Cerissa McMillan, who is averaging six points and three rebounds, has given Barton some strong minutes off the bench from the perimeter. She is shooting a team-best 46.7 percent on 3-pointers (14-for-30) and has hit 24 of 54 total field goals for 44.4 percent.
Jara Shoemaker is averaging 3.2 points and 4.6 rebounds as a small forward and guard.
Netanya Jackson, a 6-foot-4 post player, is averaging 10.5 points and 6.7 rebounds. She is shooting a team-high 46.1 percent from the floor (53-for-115).
“She’s got to have more of a motor,” Ferguson said of Jackson, who averaged 16.4 minutes through the Lady Cougars’ first 13 games. “We need to play her 18 to 20 minutes, and she’s got to work harder when she’s in there.
“I believe she could be more active and go to the glass better.”
Staying fit over the break will only be a small part in getting acclimated to the rigors of conference play.
“We’ve got to get better defensively,” Ferguson said. “We’ve got to work on our second and third rotations in our man and in our zone defenses.
“The second semester, we’ve got to get ready for Cloud. They’ve got to understand that conference games are totally different.
“It’s a whole new ballgame. All of these games mean a lot more, and every game is important.”