Homegrown hoopers help Mincey manufacture Lady Eagles
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Walk into Holt Fieldhouse on a women’s basketball game day and the presence of Tennessee natives is obvious. The twangs of a Southern accent are evident but the part that is blatantly Volunteer State is the amount of family in attendance to watch the Lady Eagles.
Each Sunday during the 2016-17 school year, the Carson-Newman athletic communications department will shine a spotlight on a current or former Carson-Newman student-athlete or team looking to tell a tale of life outside of his or her respective sport.
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Walk into Holt Fieldhouse on a women's basketball game day and the presence of Tennessee natives is obvious. The twangs of a Southern accent are evident but the part that is blatantly Volunteer State is the amount of family in attendance to watch the Lady Eagles.
On the 2016-17 Carson-Newman roster, 13 of the 14 players call Tennessee home with 11 of those student-athletes residing within 50 miles of the Mossy Creek campus. It was the third straight season that the roster consisted of 13 players from the 16th state in the union. To an outsider it may seem like coach Mike Mincey recruits player from the surrounding area because it is easy. However there is a line of logic that helped the coach cash in the program's 18th 20-win season.
The sixth-year head man at C-N was an assistant at East Tennessee when he realized the wealth of talent in the state. When he was an assistant for the Lady Eagles the roster was split down the middle in terms of representation and when he was interviewed for the head spot he realized a change was needed.
"There was definitely a focus in place," Mincey explained. "I felt like there was an opportunity to win a lot of games with local players. Tennessee has always been a hotbed for fundamentally sound players that could shoot. I came here and I was an assistant for three years. You could see there was some talent in the area. We didn't focus on it as much when I was an assistant because we had players from Colorado, Nebraska, Florida and other places. When it was my opportunity to interview for the job, I wanted to do it how coach [Eddie] Carter did it back in his day. I wanted to draw a triangle between Nashville, Chattanooga and Johnson City and build our roster with kids from that area."
Nearby Knoxville is where many people consider the start of the boom of women's hoops. Legendary University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt won eight national championships with the Lady Volunteers and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame is located in downtown.
Being a major college basketball player started on Rocky Top and the first player that Mincey signed when he took over the job at Carson-Newman prior to the 2011-12 season is his current assistant, Tatum Burstrom.
She credits Summitt for her early passion to play basketball and why she wanted to become a coach when her playing days concluded last year. In her four seasons, the Maryville, Tenn. native wrapped up her career fourth in South Atlantic Conference history with 254 made three-pointers setting the school's benchmark. Burstrom concluded her four years with 1,234 points, good for ninth in C-N history.
"My freshman year we still had people scattered out around the country," Burstrom said. "My last three years I realized the difference. With no students around I thought it was going to be dead in the gym. We had so many families there though because we could invite so many people. There is just something special about having that family feel to the arena. In our gym, it echoes and it makes it feel fuller than it is because our families were so invested."
The attendance at games since Burstrom's freshman season of 2012-13 has nearly tripled as close to 10,000 people attended the 14 games on the Jefferson City campus in 2016-17. It has led to a strong home court advantage as Mincey's teams have recorded a 61-23 record at Holt Fieldhouse including a 12-2 mark in 2016-17. The two setbacks came to the top two teams in the conference in overtime tussles.
"We could get the same caliber of player right down the road as we could nationally," Mincey analyzed. "When you do that, you have moms and dads, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas in the stands. We have our own cheering section of fans in Holt Fieldhouse because of the proximity of where they are from. If you have kids from three states away, their parents are going to watch on web stream and you lose a little of that home court advantage. The parents are only going to come occasionally."
The combined distance between Carson-Newman's campus to the hometowns of the starting five for the Lady Eagles in 2016-17 was 302 miles, 190 of which was from senior Kailyn Brooks (Lafayette, Tenn.).
The product on the court is not just solid in the conference as the school led the league in 10 separate statistical categories, but holds a spot on the national landscape. Carson-Newman was sixth in the country out of 307 schools in scoring offense at 80.7, seventh in turnover margin at plus-seven and eighth in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.27. The unit was 12th in assists per game at over 17 per night while shooting just shy of 45 percent, 22nd in the country.
"On any roster that has East Tennessee kids, they are typically very fundamental and they can shoot it," Mincey dissected. "In my first year, we were very athletic but we didn't have people that consistently made shots. Right now, we have a lot of kids on the floor that shot 40 percent from the field and those aren't layups. Our field-goal percentage is phenomenal because we have people that can shoot the basketball. Tennessee kids in general spend a lot of time in shooting and ball-handling. Sometimes they don't possess the quickness so they can control how well they shoot the basketball."
Carson-Newman's leading scorer in 2016-17 was a sophomore that transferred from Western Carolina closer to home. Mika Wester (Newport, Tenn.) became the 11th player in the history of the program to earn recognition higher than all-conference.
The forward ranked 12th in the country in made field goals with 224 on the year while posting 18.6 points per game, second in the SAC and 26th in the country. The forward led the league in free-throw percentage at 84 percent while placing sixth in field-goal percentage at 49. With 29 rejections, the transfer was seventh in the league in blocks.
"When I was at Western, it was hard for my family to see me play because it was already 90 minutes away and we would travel another five hours sometimes so they couldn't make that drive." Wester elaborated. "Having that support system helps because my parents embrace my basketball ability. They help me accomplish my goals. My teammates are on the same page as me because we want to break records. We have two more years to develop through our summer and preseason next year. With all of us being from Tennessee, it is easy to get us together to practice together. It is nice to build a legacy of Tennessee girls at Carson-Newman."
Having so many local athletes assists Mincey to get a better feel for players that he recruits. It is an advantage that provides further details and greater insight into perspective players.
"From player to player the familiarity helps give me a scouting report on kids in the area," Mincey expounded. "We have had people that our kids knew and said whether or not they loved them or hated them. I am going to get a little more of an inside scoop on a player's personality so I don't make a recruiting mistake like I might if a kid is 10 hours away. I may not have a relationship with people in that area and they will just tell me all of the great things about kids in that area. When they get here, you may not get what you thought because there sometimes is a breakdown in scouting reports.
"It's very valuable to go ask the girls to go watch a player and tell me what they think. I ask them what they think and typically we are on the same page. I can get a different perspective. Whether or not you want to call it a player's program, I want their opinions. Towards the end of this season, I had three plans written on a white board because I thought we could win using any of those. I asked the kids what they wanted and they would pick one. They know I have trust in the evaluation process and it works in recruiting and in game situations."
Burstrom called herself a "home body". She wanted to stay close to home so her family could see her play. On her recruiting visit, it was raining and the dreary day did not make Carson-Newman stand out. What sold her on becoming a Lady Eagle was a family feel. The team's chemistry is something that can never be challenged for the tight-knit group.
"We are around during Christmas break but someone's family is there to make us dinner when our practice lets out and we get a home cooked meal and can go as a team," Burstrom illuminated. "If you are tired of being in the dorm, you can run home and see your family and be back the next day for practice. It's not taking you away from your team because your teammates want to make the trip with you. There are so many options to get that home feel."
The recruiting plan of Mincey is deep and has been refined over his 15 years of collegiate coaching experience. Ultimately, he wants to bring in the best available players no matter where they are from.
"We knew long ago that if we are going to get kids with good grades, good behavior and are good on the floor we have to recruit locally," Mincey discussed. "It's going to be hard to get kids like that away from Atlanta or Memphis. Because of the location the kids stay happy because they know the area. We have basically had the same offense over the last three or four years. You have to have players and we adopted some of the principles that Connecticut has used. Mika has added a different dynamic with her ability to play at the four opening things up for players."
Having the perspective of what it means to play at the Division I level, Wester said there is not a lot of difference and that this team is special because of how close the group is in its inclusion of its lone player not from Tennessee, Abby Tinsley (Charlottesville, Va.).
"It keeps our team close because we know the same people and the same areas," Wester elaborated. "A lot of us played for the [AAU team] Trotters or played against someone for the majority of our lives. It helps our chemistry because we are all very similar people. Abby enjoys traveling and likes going to our hometowns. On some teams, you never get to see what a person's hometown is like and where they came from, but it's cool to see where my teammates came from."
Mincey admits that from time management to the budget there are several perks to having players from nearby. The coaching staff can take care of business on campus and make a short drive to a local high school and recruit players for the upcoming seasons.
Burstrom has seen the benefits of having so many local players from both sides. Since graduating last year she has been able to keep in touch with her classmates because all of them are located within a short drive.
"After the season ended last year, we made a promise with each other that we would get together at least twice a month because it is so convenient," Burstrom conversed. "It's easy because you are 30 minutes from each other. It's good to keep in contact with your past teammates because your friends in college are usually your friends for life."
The success on the court continues to provide an uptick in the philosophy as the group is coming off of a fourth-place finish in the league, a 20-win season and an explosive offense. Talent returns in 2017-18 led by Wester and a dynamic junior class featuring Briana Smith (Nashville, Tenn.) and Haris Price (Gatlinburg, Tenn.) with a steady force of seniors in Katie Stubblefield (Alcoa, Tenn.) and Jecca Simerly (Talbott, Tenn.).
Summitt said "success is a project that's always under construction". The foundation of Carson-Newman women's basketball is players from the state of Tennessee and the roots for gamedays provide one of the game's elite offenses and home court advantages.
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