Q&A: Eastern Washington University women’s basketball Head Coach Wendy Schuller

We sat down with EWU women’s basketball Head Coach Wendy Schuller and asked her a few questions regarding the upcoming season…

With the turnover and so many fresh faces, what is the focus going into this season?
Our biggest thing that we are really trying to emphasize is toughness and to be aggressive. I think we are more athletic than we were a year ago; we are a lot deeper, obviously, than we were a year ago. With those two things combined, I think that our aggressiveness and our energy on the defensive end can be turned up a notch.

With all the experience that Jessica Huntington has had, will her role in the offense look toward more scoring?
Over the offseason, Jess spent a lot of time in the gym, she is shooting the ball much better than she has in the past. I think that when your point guard has the ability to score, it just puts that much more pressure on the defense.

Has Julie Piper become more of a vocal leader for this year’s team?
She probably has, just because she has a better idea of what’s going on. She has a better concept of it all. I look at our three sophomores really as juniors. There’s not that many freshmen that played that many minutes in America.

What are you looking forward to most this season?
Just watching us grow. We obviously have a lot of young kids, but this team has the potential to be clicking on all cylinders by mid-conference.

Interview by Darren Shimp, collegiate sports editor. Darren can be reached by e-mail at darren@htsports.org.