University of North Texas Athletics
Green Gang: Stephens Gets To The Point
4/23/2010 12:00:00 AM | Return to Play
By Steven Bartolotta, April 23, 2010, 10:44 a.m.
I caught a movie over the weekend, How to Train Your Dragon, and there was a particular scene in the movie that kinda reminded me of what the North Texas women's basketball season was like this year. Warning, if you don't want me to spoil the movie for you, click away, and don't worry, I'm not turning into a movie critic masquerading as a sports guy.
It's the scene where the Night Fury dragon is injured and can't fly away because his tail-wing is missing from when he was shot out of the sky. Hiccup (the hero in the movie and yes that's his name) whips up this pretty cool looking device, and next thing you know, the dragon could fly.
The lesson, you can't fly unless you have all parts working, no matter how small or insignificant they may look, and that was the Mean Green last season. A rudder-less ship on offense.
No knock on Caitlin Hawkins, Brittney Hudson or Ravven Brown, because they both performed as well as they could being pressed into emergency point guard duties, but North Texas needed to find a floor general during the recruiting period.
Shanice Stephens set out to do just that, and wisely stocked up on not one, two, but three potential point guards. Throw in Laura McCoy from the early signing period and the Mean Green's roster suddenly has a stockpile of point guards.
You want to win in basketball, you need a point guard. See Josh White, Jason Kidd and the 2009-10 edition of Butler men's hoops. All great point guards and great guard play.
Face it, if you don't have a great point guard, and you end up with 23 turnovers a game, which is what North Texas had last year.
Watching last season unfold, I went back to something Stephens mentioned to me in October about the position and the plays her team, could, or could not run. The offense she wanted to run wasn't going to happen....period.
Stephens was really handcuffed by what her team could do without a floor general. It wasn't the only problem, but one so glaring it compounded other areas.
Example: Hawkins is a shooting guard, but playing the point, she couldn't shoot as much. If you have a point guard, then you put Hawkins at the 2 or 3. Brittney Hudson is a slasher and scorer, but at the point guard position last year, that all went out the window.
A point guard can put players like Hudson and Hawkins back into their more natural places on the floor. Brown was possibly the most pleasant surprise the final month of the year and has a role that Stephens will find for her on the floor.
One player, one move, will make that much difference.
Not all of the players signed yesterday and in November are going to be playing the point. Desiree' Nelson is a combo guard, much like McCoy, but both with point guard pedigrees. Kasondra Foreman and Aylssa Hankins are really the two lynchpins to the equation.
They are true point guards and are being brought in to provide stability and leadership at that role.
Without it one, the off-season for Stephens might have been How to Train Your Point Guard.
