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Cougars busy stressing fundamentals, continued improvement
Jarrod Duff knew it would be more than a one-year process to elevate the North Putnam girls’ basketball program when he took over last season, and while the Lady Cougars are not yet where he wants them to be – he definitely sees progress as they move forward.
The Cougars won three games on the court last season, although two were later forfeited when a substitute player was ruled ineligible due to an administrative oversight.
“We are a lot better at this point than we were last year,” Duff said. “We are much improved over the end of last season. Probably more than anything, we have improved fundamentally by leaps and bounds. We have been working hard on fundamentals, and it’s definitely showing.”
Duff has been putting his players through a battery of drills involving passing, shooting, footwork and other basic techniques and likes the results.
“I like the tempo and the energy that the girls have shown,” he said. “The enthusiasm, the communication and the effort – especially on the defensive end – have all been fantastic. We’re still in the early stages of cleaning up some things when we’re running up and down the court, and trying to run our offense.
“It’s still a challenge to take what we’re doing in drills and rolling that over into the game situations, but we’re getting there.”
Duff was able to blend in several seniors last year with a large group of promising underclassmen, and will still have a young squad this year with Mia Runnells (3.5 points per game) as the team’s only senior member.
Juniors who saw varsity time last year as sophomores include Kinzey Young, Payton Lyons and Ashley O’Neal, while sophomores who got varsity minutes as freshmen were Hannah Sims, Baylee Osburn, Clarissa Gibson, Abby Simmerman and Dana Tennis.
Sophomore Bradi Gierke, a 6-footer who is a standout for the North Putnam volleyball and softball teams, did not play basketball last year but is also in the mix.
“We have some pretty good athletes,” Duff said. “We have some decent size in spots, but we’re going to take what the defense gives us. One of the toughest things that I have experienced as a coach over the last 20 years is that it’s a challenge sometimes to maneuver around and manage that fine line that you have – especially offensively – when you want to play at a fast pace, but you want to make sure they’re still staying under control and not being sloppy with the ball.”
Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden has a saying that he wanted his players to “be quick, but don’t hurry,” and Duff said that describes what his players do at times.
“I’ve used that phrase thousands of times over my coaching career,” he said. “They’ve heard it a lot this year, too, but it’s really too. You have to play under control.”
Duff and his staff set a goal last year to get his younger players as many minutes as possible, whether on the varsity or junior varsity level.
“We have a lot of kids who played a lot of minutes last year,” he said. “The good thing last year was that we had a winning JV record, finishing 12-8, and we won the Tri-West JV tourney. That was big for our girls.
“That was important for our program. We wanted to make sure that happened, and it shows this year,” Duff said. “They better know what we want them to do. We’re not going to re-invent the wheel this year and put in 7,000 new things.”
Duff was also impressed that his players kept a positive attitude and worked hard in spite of last year’s won-loss record, and thought they had a good summer.
“We had a great summer,” he said. “The two areas I which we improved the most were our strength and conditioning. We really lifted a lot this summer, and it was pretty special that we had all our girl athletes in lifting together. We worked on some speed and agility things, plyometrics and things like that, and I think that’s the biggest thing we committed to. A lot of those kids are also in advanced physical conditioning class [that Duff teaches] and they will continue to lift all year.”
Duff used a different strategy in the summer than many coaches do, and he feels the benefits were many.
“We didn’t play in any leagues or go to any ‘shootouts’,” he said. “We just worked on making ourselves better, since that’s what we needed the most. That’s going to pay huge dividends both this year, and – if we continue to be committed to it – down the road. We put up thousands of shots, and I can definitely see that work paying off.”
Duff knows the other three Putnam County teams have a lot of players back from teams that all had winning records last season, and the competition will be very good.
“The county has a lot of good players and good teams,” he said. “Our conference is good, and I think that’s going to be consistent over the years. We are also in a tough sectional.
“We’re not going to worry about the end result, such as how many games we’re going to win or if we’re going to win the county or not,” Duff added. “We talk all thetime about being process-driven, and we worry about what’s in front of us right now. That’s a day-to-day thing.”
Duff has emphasized to his players to worry about the immediate thing they are working on, and to not look too far ahead.
“If we’re doing a drill in practice, we need to be worried about doing it the right way and not that we play North Vermillion on November 2,” he said. “If we’re lifting in APC class, we’re not going to worry about the next lift or how much total weight we’re going to get – we’re worried about doing that lift correctly.”
Duff sees another factor important to the future of the program.
“Every girl who played eighth-grade basketall last yaer is out this year,” he said. “That’s really important for us.”
