With a new head coach comes a new system.
That’s generally the rule, and Barton Community College women’s head basketball coach Carter Kruger said that will be the case for the 2012-13 season.
The new-look Lady Cougars will try to out-pace their opponents.
“We’re going to try to get more transition baskets,” Kruger said. “We’ll try to push the tempo a little bit, shoot some jumpers early and those kind of things.”
Kruger will look to keep his team fresh, allowing them to outwork whoever they come up against.
“Offensively, what we do is we try to spread the floor and drive and cut and do those kinds of things,” Kruger said. “We’ll try to take advantage of some teams that have bigger, slower, less athletic players.”
The change is necessitated after the loss of 6-foot-4 Netanya Jackson, an imposing player in the paint. Jackson signed to play at Murray State after graduating from Barton last spring.
“We don’t have much of a top-level size like a 6-foot-4 Netanya Jackson,” Kruger said. “But we do have quite a bit of depth with kids who are 5-11, 6-feet tall, and the style we play is going to be a little different in we’re not going to wait for Netanya to run down the floor.”
The five returning sophomore players — guards Jennifer Allende, Blair Bloomfield, Erin Copeland and Taschell Phillips, along with forward Ta’Kerra Williams — are transitioning to the new offense well, according to Kruger.
“The five returning players that we have are better suited for an up-tempo game,” Kruger said. “All the kids that we’ve brought in are better suited for that game. They can run. They play good defense.”
Kruger said that first-year assistant coach Alan Clark has been instrumental in recruiting so far.
“Alan’s kind of hit the ground running,” Kruger said. “Not only has he never coached at a college, he’s never been an assistant coach before. Going from being a head coach to an assistant coach is always a transition.
“He’s really doing well for us on recruiting side of things. He knows the game of basketball, and he ‘s really been an asset as far as the X’s and O’s.”
Clark, a former player for Barton in the mid-1970s, has had some success as the head coach of the Otis-Bison High School boys’ basketball team.
He led Otis-Bison to two straight Class 1A Division-II state tournaments. It finished runner-up in 2011, and third in 2010.
“He had a good run,” Kruger said. “You can see that in his daily approach, always looking for ways to improve our team, improve out coaching staff and how we’re recruiting. That’s always something you look for in an assistant coach, and he does great in those areas.