Oct. 24—Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach Jacie Hoyt and Cowgirls Anna Gret Asi, Rylee Langerman and Stailee Heard spoke at Big 12 Basketball Media Days Tuesday. OSU was picked to finish 11th in the conference.
Here’s what they said:
What did you learn about yourself as a head coach and about your team, the culture of this program and where you want it moving forward?
Hoyt: “I just learned about their toughness and their grit, their ability to be resilient in the face of adversity, which we saw a lot of. I’ve never gone through a season like that as an assistant or a head coach or even a player. I’ve been fortunate to never even lose a single player to a season-ending injury, and we lost about four last year. So it was really tough, but they played through it, they never made excuses, they never played the victim and I’m so proud of who they were in those moments. And I’m so proud of our culture because of what they established as our foundation for toughness.”
How important is that leadership?
Hoyt: “Adversity can either be divisive for teams or it can bring people together, and it really brought them together. We want to be in the tournament. We want to win in the tournament. That’s the standard we have at Oklahoma State. That’s what we want to get back to this year. And I think the great thing about last season was that they didn’t like the way that it went. To not be playing in a postseason tournament, that’s hard, that’s brutal, and I know that they don’t want to feel that feeling ever again. So it has been great to see them come together as a group — but then also lead the way for this team that we have now this season and say ‘Hey, this is what it’s going to take. This is what it needs to look like. We don’t want to have that feeling again.'”
How has practice been going?
Hoyt: “I love their work ethic. I love their buy-in. They’re very hungry right now to work hard, to compete. They’re very hungry to be coached. I’ve been able and my staff has been able to coach them really hard, which has been fun. This is a group that just wants to get better every day, so as a staff, we get to focus on basketball and basketball only. We’re not coaching effort. We’re not dealing with things that don’t have anything to do with basketball. It’s just basketball, and that is a really good feeling.”
How do you define your own leadership on the floor?
Asi: “Just getting everybody on the same page like when we’re learning new plays and running them in practice. Just kind of slowing everything down for everybody.”
What did you focus on in the offseason?
Asi: It was mostly mental — just being able to work through getting in my head. I’m still working through it, still young and still learning, but I feel like overall, I’m not letting my mistakes affect my game that much.”
What have you liked seeing from your team as a veteran?
Langerman: “Our emphasis is on toughness and on pushing through, and I think that our team has focused on that. Every single day we get better. One of the biggest things with a program is to have a growth mindset, and I think that we apply that in every area. What that looks like is being coachable, and I think that’s something really special about this group. We all really want to get better in every single way. I think that translates really well.”
What have you worked on to avoid a sophomore slump?
Heard: “For me, it’s taking care of my body, trying to stay on the court and learning how to become the leader we need for this team. I have to be able to communicate with my teammates.”
What is your frontcourt looking like?
Hoyt: “I really like where we’re at. We’re working every day on figuring out how to make things mesh and come together with so many new pieces, but I think our staff did an amazing job in the portal and we were able to get some great size in the portal. Ténin Magassa is one of the best shot blockers in the country, statistically, coming in, and she has made a huge impact. Of course, Praise (Egharevba) from last year — she’s shaping up to be a really great player for us. And then we were able to add Stacie Jones, who is very different from those two. She’s fast. I think all three of those players are really going to allow us to get back to the style we want to play, which is a fast-paced style. We were so limited with injuries last year, and just having a different roster than what I’m used to having to play the uptempo speed that we want and I’m excited for this group to really help us get back to that.”
What did you think about when building the nonconference schedule?
Hoyt: “We have a really great balance of some teams that are going to allow us to play with some lineups and see what we’re made of, how we want that to look. Also, a lot of those teams are really good. Our nonconference (doesn’t have) the big names that people are familiar with, but … we’re gonna find out what we’re made of early in the month of November. We got a lot of home games, and there’s nothing like being at home. So I’m really excited to get our team in front of our fans and let them get a taste of (our team).”
