Lady Blues now with numbers

BLUEFIELD — Over the past several years, Bluefield State women’s basketball head coach Gary Brown has run into the same problem with his team. At some point in their season, they have had a lack of bodies to put on the floor.

Brown has tried to address that problem this year, bringing in a number of new players with different levels of experience and backgrounds to bolster the Blues’ bench.

“We brought in a few players that we think will help us,” Brown said. “We recruited two junior college players. We had a transfer from West Virginia Wesleyan, Laken Coeburn who played at PikeView High School. We have a couple freshmen.”

In addition to Coeburn, Brown added junior forward Ashley Butler, sophomore guard Garcia Hanna and four freshmen including Tazewell, Va. native Brittney Muncy.

Brown hopes his efforts will solve the problem.

“To a certain degree, the numbers will help tremendously,” Brown said. “But we feel like we have upgraded in talent somewhat. We’re still going to be a really small team and a relatively young team. So there will be some growing pains with this team.

“Even though we had quite a few freshmen last year, most of them did not return. So for the most part we’re starting all over again and that’s always an adventure in itself.”

Even though Brown has an influx of new talent, he admits that he lacks some true post players on his roster.

“One of our weaknesses will be size and that’s been part of our problems since I’ve been here,” Brown said. “But we feel like if we can get basketball players that are skilled enough, you can overcome size to some degree.

“So we’re hoping that our players as they grow and learn and they get comfortable with one another that they can play as a union and we can perform at a high enough level that we’ll be able to compete and have a winning season.”

Brown has focused on acquiring skill for the Lady Blues. Seven of the 11 players on the current Bluefield State roster are listed as guards. So naturally, Brown places the guard spot in the column marked, “Strengths.”

“We don’t have a legitimate post player at this time of the year,” Brown said. “So we feel like our strength is going to be at the guards and we’re hoping that they can hold us together and handle the ball well enough that we can be effective offensively and then pressure the ball well enough that we can be effective defensively.”

Brown did not have a starting lineup in mind when Bluefield State held its basketball media day in October. Starting lineups will likely be game time decisions because there are so many variables impacting his team.

“Right now were trying to feel ourselves and find out who is going to be those top five or six or seven people,” Brown said. “We’ll probably play at least nine people this year and maybe 10.

“And the starting lineup may change from game to game depending on the situation and who’s playing well because everybody here except three returning people ... we hope they can contribute at a high level this year and if they do then some of the other people will come around.”

What makes this year different is the fact that Brown has people to work with.

“It’s not so much a luxury, but it allows you to do,” Brown said. “I know when Fairmont (State) was really good, the boys team, they only played seven, no more than eight people. They played those people all the time.

“It just depends on what style you like to play and it enables you to rest some kids. And also it enables us to do a lot more defensively because you can extend yourself with the pressure and by doing that you’re going to need to rest your people.”

According to Brown, the Blues will need every advantage they can get. He expects the WVIAC to be as tough as it has ever been.

“It’s probably going to be pretty strong,” Brown said. “I think at this point I would say that West Liberty State University is going to be a No. 1 team at the start of the season and they return just about all of their players from last year and they missed going to the regionals by probably a game.

“After that, you look at (West Virginia) Wesleyan, Concord should be pretty tough this year coming in and Charleston’s always going to be pretty strong. But some of the other schools like (Alderson Broaddus) and Davis & Elkins, they’ve upgraded somewhat and I think they’ll be a little tougher.”

Brown did not speculate on where he expected the Lady Blues to finish in the conference. Having said that, he did mention that his team has a desire to get out of the basement of the conference.

“Right now, we’re concentrating on preparing each and every day, playing hard, practicing hard and if we can do those things, if we can play well and compete, then we’ll let the chips fall where they may,” Brown said.

“They want to try to make it to Charleston this year. They want to win a first-round tournament game. They want to win most of their games at home or all of their games at home. But I’m not going to put a lot of pressure on them and tell them we have 15 games or we have to win 20 games. We want to win and if you play well enough, winning will take care of itself.”

— Contact Jed Lockett

at jlockett@bdtonline.com

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