Depth is key for Drake

After losing All-MVC first team performer Kristin Turk and coming off a 15-15 season that saw the team exit in the quarterfinals of the 2011 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Championship, the Bulldogs haven’t been harassed by expectations.

They did, after all, lose their best scorer, and they did only win half of their games last season. But perhaps flying under the radar is exactly what this team needs.

Despite being picked to finish seventh in the conference, Drake is boasting its deepest squad in years. Also, health and experience are finally on the Bulldogs’ side. That and the presence of senior center Rachael Hackbarth.

“We are excited about the play of Rachael Hackbarth,” head coach Amy Stephens said at Drake women’s basketball media day. “She ended the season in her last seven games averaging almost 25 points a game. She had a great offseason, she worked hard to improve and add some things to her game. In the last nine or 10 games of the season, she came into her own and really started becoming the consistent player that we thought she could be.”

Hackbarth averaged 14.6 points and 8.1 rebounds per game last season. With Turk gone, Hackbarth will face double-teams and triple-teams, and the Bulldogs will have to spread the floor in order to give their shooters open looks.

“If they’re going to be double-teaming and triple-teaming, we’re going to make them pay,” Hackbarth said. “Almost anyone on the team can shoot the three.”

Along with Hackbarth, the Bulldogs will also have senior Amber Wollschlager and reshirt junior Brittnye McSparron return.

McSparron injured her knee her sophomore season and then missed her entire junior season when she re-injured her knee.  Her return will bring a lot of quickness and explosiveness to the point guard position, and it will allow junior Kayla Person to switch to her natural shooting guard position.

“It’s been really difficult, just because I had never been injured until I got to college,” McSparron said. “Just when things start going well again, I get injured again, which is really tough. It has been a struggle sitting out. I feel like I’ve been sitting out more than I’ve played.”

Wollschlager also returns after averaging 7.4 points per game last season.

“Personally, I just want to have an overall successful year,” Wollschlager said. “I want to win, don’t get me wrong. I want to have a successful season as far as that goes. But I also want the chemistry to keep it as it has been this year.”

But the Bulldogs have to get used to life without Turk and to adjust to the new offensive principles that first-year assistant coach Kirk Crawford brought over to the program.

“I think we’re getting a better grasp of it now because we’ve been doing it a lot in practice and stuff like that,” McSparron said. “A lot of those plays that we do are just basketball reads. To play D-I (Division I), you’ve got to have a basketball IQ.”

Hackbarth said she believes that they will be able to execute a balanced attack on the offensive side of the ball.

“Last season, we were more two-dimensional between me and Turk,” Hackbarth said. “This season I think our strength is the balanced attack that we are going to have. Getting the ball to the right person for the right shot is something that we’ve been working on.”

The Bulldogs will have the depth that they have missed in recent years. Along with Person, McSparron, Wollschlager and Hackbarth, a lot is expected from junior Stephanie Running and sophomore Morgan Reid. Coming off the bench, the Bulldogs will have the 3-point shooting of sophomore Alyssa Marschner and redshirt freshman Carly Grenfell at their disposal.

“I think it will help us because a lot of teams in the conference don’t have that depth,” Person said.  “When we have people who can go 19, 20 minutes a game and then we have freshmen that can easily come in and play, I think that’s a huge factor for our team. To have 13 healthy players in practice, you get better that way.”

The Bulldogs welcomed four freshmen to their program: Symone Daniels, Liza Heap, Kyndal Clark and Cara Lutes. All four of them might be expected to contribute right away.

Missouri State and Northern Iowa are considered the class of the conference, but the Bears lost some key players to graduation, and the Panthers recently lost star point guard Jacqui Kalin to a season-ending injury.

The Bulldogs understand that they can make a splash in the MVC. They have the depth and the experience to make a run.

“Being picked seventh, teams seem to think there are no expectations for us,” Person said. “For us, that’s like big-time motivation. We’re the underdog. We’re going to do everything in our power to be an upper-half team. We go in day in and day out every day thinking about what can we do to make ourselves better,  and so that we can prove (to) ourselves that we are not a seventh-place team.”

Bottom Line

The Bulldogs face tough competition in the MVC. But Hackbarth will command the middle, and depth and athleticism will carry this team to a surprising season.

Predicted record: 17-12