Made my way over to the St Paul side of town on this cold, rainy Monday night to Butler Center on the campus of St. Catherine's University to take in this early season practice of the St. Kate's team. I got there early enough to have time to chat with Head Coach Don Mulhern and catch up on things on the basketball front. I've known Don for a while now and consider him a very good friend and I truly enjoy the times we get to talk about not only basketball or sports but life in general.
Once the team is on the floor, Mulhern and his assistants have the squad get loosened up and stretched out for the evening of work ahead and there's a wide array of items that Mulhern has his team work on for this Monday night. The first drill that the team does on this night is a drill called "Kentucky Shooting". The team is split up into two groups at each main basket and starts with both right- and left-handed layups. It then transitions to short- and mid-range jumpers from both in the lane and near the elbow areas. Then it transitions to jumpers from three-point land. A specific number of shots from each area must be made before the two groups can move to the next area. Then it starts coming back to the short- and mid-range jumper area before closing out with some more layups.
Next is an interesting 4-on-4 drill that actually starts out with four offensive players taking on three defensive players with the fourth defensive player coming in from the side to try and simulate (I think) an up-tempo situation where adjustments have to be made on both sides of the ball.
Next, Mulhern and Assistant Coach Ben Fleming has the team do some half-court work that focuses first on perimeter screens and proper defensive switching. Later on, Fleming has the squad focus on some newly-installed defensive tactics that will hopefully improve this squad's efforts on the defensive end and enable them to be more disruptive against opponents. Mulhern also has the team do a 3-on-3 drill that focuses on the post area where defensive players have to move along the baseline in relation to where the ball is moving and the defensive players must know when to switch as well.
Mulhern has the team do a few other other interesting drills as well. One; called the Tim Kjar Sprint Helpside drill (for former St. Kate's Assistant and Head Coach Tim Kjar; a good friend of mine) where the team gets in two lines and has to sprint from basically an on-ball position to either the sideline or the mid-court area. Another interesting one that I've never seen before is the "Winona Offense" drill that Mulhern has the team do which starts as a 5-on-0 "shell" drill that eventually becomes a 5-on-5 half-court situation. Still another interesting drill that Mulhern has the team to is termed the "Inbounds Mabel Boston" (and don't ask me where this term came from either). It's another 5-on-0 "shell situation that focuses on in-bounds situations and the team is split into two groups to work on this. It then morphs into a 5-on-5 halfcourt drill with the team back as one group.
Another area where Mulhern hopes to have his squad become more aggressive on the defensive side is with some full-court press work. From remembering when Dr. Tom Davis employed this strategy several times during his days as head coach at my alma mater, Iowa, it's an incredibly effective strategy when you're attempting a comeback, especially in the latter stages of the game when you need to rattle your opponent. True, it helps if you have the right kinds of athletes to employ a press but it can very effective at times.
Lastly, to close things out for the evening, Mulhern has the team split up into small groups to work on free throws for a bit; always a very important area of the game and I've always been a firm believer that a player can never shoot too many free throws in practice.
Outtakes: First, right off the bat, the one thing I really like about this team is the great leadership on the floor that Mulhern and his staff have with this squad. Two fifth-year seniors - Sam Orth and Mackenzie Kurczek along with senior Bree Glynn - are as good a trio as any in the MIAC and I picked up right away how they're able to lead the younger players on some of the finer points of the game and what needs to be done during drills. This trio is as good as they come when it comes to leadership. Junior Karis Zezza out of STMA has also quietly come along with her game and is a solid player. Lanky 5'11" sophomore Greta Schimnowski out of Mahtomedi now has a year of experience under her belt and should figure prominently in the St. Kate's frontcourt. I also like fellow sophomore Sydney Elliott out of Rochester Lourdes to figure more and more into the equation for this St. Kate's team.......As it seems in so many years past, the key items for this squad's success always seem to hinge on these items: (1) Can they find some level of consistency when the first of the year rolls around in the meat of the brutal MIAC schedule? (2) Can they develop some of the younger faces on this team so that they can provide some quality minutes in relief? (3) Can this group collectively become better on defense? (4) Most importantly, can they stay relatively healthy? If they can answer "Yes" to these questions, there's no reason why this team can't be a factor in the MIAC race and contend for a conference playoff spot........ Speaking of those "younger faces", Mulhern does indeed have some good ones and they were able to show their stuff this last summer at the Midtown YWCA Women's College League........The Wildcats start things off this next Wednesday night with an exhibition game against DII Concordia St Paul over at Gangelhoff Arena. The following weekend has the team taking a trip to Florida where they'll face off against Webber International University on Friday (11-11) and then another exhibition game where they'll face Trinity Baptist College. Then come six MIAC contests before the holiday break. The team will also visit the shores of Gitche Gumee up in Superior, Wisconsin just before the first of the year; taking on host UW-Superior on Friday (12-30) and Finlandia on Saturday (12-31) before delving back into MIAC play.
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