LIVE VIDEO | LIVE STATS
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University women’s basketball team tips off the 2012-13 season this Friday night, November 9, when they host Palm Beach Atlantic, and are right back at it again two days later against UPR-Mayaguez.
“I know we’re ready, but it’s going to be an interesting game because PBA has a different head coach, so we really don’t know what to expect,” said head coach LeAnn Freeland. “I do know that they’re a team that’s going to play extremely hard, and they’re going to fight for 40 minutes. It’s really important for us to be able to implement our defensive philosophies every possession, and make sure our communication is on point, because we don’t know what to expect on offense or defense from PBA. It’s going to be a great opportunity to learn and to work as a unit to make sure we are playing every possession to the best of our ability.”
The new Sailfish head coach is Carlos Palacio, a graduate of the school who was most recently atop the program at Lake Worth Christian School. He takes over for the departed Clarisse Garcia, who was in charge when the two teams last met, a 69-51 NSU victory on Feb. 12 in West Palm Beach.
In preparation for tonight, the Sharks went 1-1 in their exhibition slate, defeating the Chilean National Team last week, 93-45, and then going on the road this past Monday to take on No. 23 Miami. The game was tied with 12 minutes to go before the Hurricanes pulled away for an 85-63 win.
“It was a great opportunity, and we definitely thank Coach (Katie) Meier for giving us that opportunity,” said Freeland of Monday’s exhibition. “We have great respect for their program, one of the best in the nation in Division I. We just wanted to see how we could compete against such great talent, while also seeing what we need to improve upon.”
Freeland took a lot of positives from the game, as the team continues to come together.
“We do need to improve certain areas, especially rebounding, but I thought we did a nice job in a lot of areas,” she said. “I was really impressed with our ball pressure, our ability to get out and run, and I thought we handled their pressure extremely well. It was a great to see the maturity of this team, because I thought we handled ourselves very well against an extremely talented opponent.”
Monday was also another chance to continue the melding together of the seven newcomers into the rotation, including two transfers in
Amanda Burakoski (Jr., Brooklyn, N.Y.) and
Tailor Jones (Sr., Altamonte Springs, Fla.).
“We wanted to give everyone an opportunity to play, and we did that,” said Freeland. “I thought our freshmen definitely learned a lot from the experience. It was great to see a player like Amanda come out fearless, and I think Tailor brings a lot of maturity to the team with her experience as well.”
Coach Freeland expects this year’s squad to be able to run and gun, and utilize their depth.
“We’re going to try to go deep, it’s important for us to be able to play a lot of players if we want to play the kind of defense that we would like to play every game,” she said. “Certain players have earned a lot of minutes, but at the same time, I think everyone needs to be ready to contribute.”
The team may look guard-heavy on paper, with the tallest player listed at 6-1 and no one listed as a center, but Freeland does not see this as a disadvantage.
“We recruit versatility, we brought this group together purposefully,” said Freeland. “We want to get out, we want to run, we want to be able to defend very aggressively. I think it’s definitely a strength.”
The Sharks return five players from last year’s 17-11 squad, while adding in the incoming recruits, all with great reputations. They were chosen second overall in the preseason SSC poll, garnering five first-place votes, and also received votes in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ national poll.
“This is a tribute to where the team finished last year, along with the new players we recruited, but we have a lot to prove,” said Freeland. “We’re really focusing on getting better every day so we can live up to the expectations that have been set for this team this season.”
Tipoff on Friday at the NSU Arena in the Don Taft University Center is 6 p.m., and on Sunday, is at 2 p.m, at home as well.
Fans can follow both games via live video
HERE and live stats
HERE. Follow the Sharks on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/NSUSharks.
For the latest NSU news and results, be sure to visit
www.NSUSharks.com. To have results sent directly to your cell phone via text message, sign up for SMS text message delivery by
clicking here. For the latest news, be sure to sign up for the Shark Alert E-newsletter by
clicking here.
