Fort Lewis women’s basketball continues to make gradual strides, with this year being its strongest start to a season under coach Taylor Harris with a 7-4 mark.
Such strides include the defensive side of the ball.
The Skyhawks are constantly in motion on defense from the moment the offense tries to inbound the ball. Fort Lewis presses opposing guards and tries to trap them in the backcourt, which often leads to turnovers.
Even in the frontcourt, the Skyhawks press the ball and usually double to try and make the opponents move the ball and take up more of the shot clock.
“It's difficult because honestly when you watch the film we look insane,” junior guard Sadie Misner said. “We look crazy and when people watch they think, ‘Holy cow, you guys are running around like with chickens with your head cut off, but I think that's why it's so good.’ You can watch film on it and think ‘Oh well, we can do this with their defense,’ but I feel like it's different every time for us guards because we'll switch it up. And some days we’re more aggressive than most, but you can't be ready for our aggressiveness.”
Teams haven’t been ready for the Skyhawks, as they are ranked second in the RMAC and 30th in Division II in points allowed per game at 57.3. Fort Lewis is also ranked first in the RMAC and 22nd in Division II with 23.27 turnovers forced per game.
A lot of those turnovers come from lofted passes out of traps, which either sophomore guard Lanae Billy or Misner pick off. Billy is seventh in Division II with 3.55 steals per game. Misner has great hands as well, averaging 2.55 steals per game.
Billy said the key for her and the other guards is to fluster opposing guards at the top of Fort Lewis’ 2-3 zone and make them pass around the zone. Then it’s up to the Skyhawks’ guards to read the passes and gamble for steals to lead to fast-break opportunities.
“The past two years, we played a lot of zone and we switched from zone to man,” Harris said. “The big intent the past two years was to slow the game down with the talent gap and most of our games we wanted to limit the amount of possessions the other team had. So we really packed it in and we told teams, ‘If you're going to beat us, you're going to beat us from the 3-point line.’ They did that, we were last in the RMAC in 3-point defense.
“So I looked at our numbers from last year, and what really hurt us and where we can stop the bleeding and our 3-point defense both percentage and makes opponents had was by far the thing that hurt us the most. So this defense, we really tried to take away threes and not allow teams to take catch and shoot 3s, and we just want to make them take uncomfortable 3s.”
The Skyhawks are now second in the RMAC and 52nd in Division II in 3-point percentage defense at 26.4%.
The defense took time to set in. Misner admitted she was lost and confused early in the year in practice and thought the team may need to switch to a different defensive approach. But it started working, and Misner said she enjoys playing defense because of how effective it is.
Although the defense is effective for the team, issues do sometimes arise for players because of that defense’s aggressive nature. Billy leads the team with 37 fouls, and Misner isn’t far behind in second with 31. Billy has had four-plus fouls in seven out of 11 games, fouling out twice. Misner has fouled out thrice.
“Coach (Harris) just tells us when to blitz the ball and just when to go hard and when it's time to chill out and slow down the ball and he just has different moments in the game what he wants us to do,” Billy said. “He does a really good job of telling us don't go for the ball or to do this.”
Harris applauded the depth of the guards with players like senior guard Ember Cervantes and junior guard Avery Evans’ defensive intensity when Misner and Billy go out.
For the rest of the season, Harris wants his team to get better on the boards and to start turning teams over earlier in the game, as well as when the Skyhawks have a lead.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
