Augsburg Practice 10-31-18

Despite fighting some heavy traffic on this Halloween evening, I got over to Augsburg's Si Melby Hall in decent time to catch this Wednesday night practice for the Augsburg women's basketball team.  The team was getting in a pre-practice workout downstairs and that gave me some time to drop in to Head Coach Ted Riverso's office to say hello to him and his assistants, former Golden Gopher standout Jackie Voigt and former Augsburg standout Jill Tichy.  After the team's workout, we all head upstairs to the gym to get this practice  session underway.

Riverso has the squad start things out with lay-up work as the team gets into two lines to work on a variety of lay-ups and short shots.  Then it's time to do some more stretching and warming-up before the squad delves into some heavier aspects of the practice session.  But before getting into the meat of practice of this night, Riverso has the squad come over to where I'm sitting to say hi to me.  That is really cool.  :)

After working on some ball screen defense, Riverso has his squad work on an Auggie staple - transition - which helps make this Augsburg team so incredibly tough to prepare for with its athleticism and speed.  It starts out as a 5-on-4 situation down the court but actually finishes as 5-on-5 half-court.

Next is a 5-on-5 half-court drill where the emphasis is on defense.  The team then works on free throws for a bit and gets a well-deserved water break as well and then runs sprints to keep them conditioned.  Then another transition drill is in the offing as the team does a 3-on-0 shell-type drill.  The drill gets modified by Riverso as he makes it continuous with two-groups going at the same time with wing players finishing with jumpers.

Next, Riverso has the team do a 5-on-0 transition "shell" drill The point of this drill is for each group of five players to get as many points as possible within a thirty-second window; first with a transition lay-up and then with jumpers. 

More free throw work comes next and then Riverso has the team work on a 5-on-0 half-court "shell" drill to emphasize movement and spacing.  Riverso also has the squad work on 5-on-0 inbounds situations as well. 

Then it's time for some 5-on-5 full-court work as Riverso hopes to have some of the finer points showing up that the squad worked on earlier showing up in an actual game-type situation.  Riverso has to stop the scrimmage several times, however, to point out flaws and mistakes and what the corrections are.

Some more free throw work followed by another round of sprints follows then Tichy has the squad split into 2 groups for a competitive shooting drill with the losing team doing push-ups afterward.  Riverso gathers the team up afterward for a short pep-talk and adjourns thing for the evening.  The team has got a good amount done on this night and Riverso wanted to lighten things up a bit on this practice session anyway because they had been going hard the last two outings.

Outtakes - What makes this Augsburg so incredibly different and exciting to watch these last couple of years is their unbelievable athleticism and speed with their very own version of the MIAC's "Fab Five" with Tamira McLemore, Camryn Speese, Aiza Wilson, Ari Jones and K'aezha Wubben - now all juniors.  With that aspect in mind, I asked Riverso about now that his core group of returning players have some solid experience under his belt if that would translate into this program making a move from the middle of the pack to the upper echelon of the conference.  Riverso seemed to indicate that that's a possiblity, of course.  Given how the team faltered down the stretch of the regular season last year that kept them out of the MIAC Playoffs, you would think that they'll definitely play with a bit of a chip on their shoulder this time around.......One thing that Riverso talked about was playing an "equitable" schedule as compared to the other MIAC teams.  Last year for instance, the Auggies had a brutal home stretch in which six of their last nine game were away from Si Melby Hall.  A glance of the 2018-19 schedule seems a bit more on the friendly side so we'll see if that makes a difference......And speaking of the schedule, the Auggies non-conference portion is an interesting slate to say the least.  They open up against three different UMAC opponents -  at home on 11-15 against Crown College then two days later travel across town to take on Northwestern.  Then UW-Superior, comes calling at Si Melby Hall on Monday 11-19 so it will be interesting to see how they fare with at least two of the top teams in the UMAC.  Thanksgiving weekend has the Auggies taking a trip down the Mighty Mississippi and the CP Rail River Sub mainline down to La Crosse where they'll face two different WIAC opponents - UW-Platteville on Saturday (11-24) and then host UW-La Crosse the next day (Sunday 11-25).  Augsburg opens up conference play at home against Bethel on Wednesday night (11-28) and I look at that game as absolutely pivotal to Augsburg's chances if they indeed intend to make a move into the upper echelon of the MIAC.  Then it's a trip up to Duluth on Saturday (12-1) to face one more UMAC opponent, St. Scholastica.  A trip over to Hamline is in the offing on Wednesday evening (12-5) before two more conference homes games with Concordia on 12-8 and St. Kate's on 12-12.  But perhaps the most enticing game on the Auggies schedule this season happens right before Christmas break on Saturday 12-15 when Trinity (Texas) out of the SCAC comes up to the Twin Cities to take on the Auggies at Si Melby Hall so that will definitely give Riverso's group some real exposure to a non-familiar opponent with a different playing style.