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Welcome to The Amy Eagan Podcast. Every Saturday Lindenwood University's Head Women's Basketball Coach Amy Eagan talks women's basketball and much, much more. We'll talk about past games, future games, players, the OVC, the NCAA, academics, careers, and many other interesting topics.
Gary D Stocker (00:01.633)
It's the Amy Egan Show with Lindenwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan where each week during the season we talk basketball for sure. We talk academics, we talk travel, we talk all sorts of things. Coach Egan, welcome back. It's been an interesting month for you and your girls on the road most of the time. just talk about the two 10 day periods. That period where you were in Hawaii and then Drake and then you came back and you did Iowa University of Iowa, Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois University.
Amy Eagan (00:29.198)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think the first thing I better say before I forget is, you know, before we left for the week before we left for Thanksgiving, I said, hey, told our kids you literally only have six days left in class because we're going to be on the road so much for Thanksgiving and then Drake and then, you know, finals after that. So we finished with a 3.5 team GPA. So was proud of our kids and I think
Gary D Stocker (00:54.641)
Beautiful.
Amy Eagan (00:57.262)
I don't have them off the of my head, but had four or five kids with 4.0s that led the way. So they did a really good job. You know, we always talk about...
you know, preparing ahead of time and doing things ahead of time and, you know, and really like not waiting till last minute. And because I think, you know, that's sometimes hard for our kids these days. And I don't know why, but we really challenged them to do those things and think about those things. And I think our kids did an excellent job with that managing not only the basketball part of it, but most importantly, the academic side of things. So I was happy with how they finished with that. You know, it was a stretch that I thought, you know, you look at the
10 days of Hawaii and that just very challenging for us and whether it's being away that long and being on the road, but also the mid-major competition we played. You you look at Santa Clara, you look at Vermont, obviously Hawaii at Hawaii is a hard place to play. And then we come back and we have to go play at a storied program of Drake, you know, where a lot of people don't go in there and win. And I thought we just managed it and handled it all really, really well. You know,
I think that, you know, coming back, we had a few days off and, you know, got back to work and they had finals that week. so, you know, Iowa was at the end of finals week, which sometimes can be tough for you, but I wasn't really happy after Iowa. mean, I think, you know, when you get to that level and you're playing that level at some point, their athleticism, their size, their, sometimes their skill work, you know, takes over a little bit more, but I wasn't really happy.
the Iowa game I thought we were better than 30 points difference with them but when I went back and watched it on the way home on the bus we honestly didn't play you know we honestly didn't do things that bad they just I thought we're just that much better than us and a tough match for us because when you look at the four position for them you know that's a true big you know really which we would consider true big in
Amy Eagan (03:03.958)
We're just not at that at that level in our fourth position. We're more guard face up type type players slow. So was happy with that and then you know we come right back after Iowa and.
I was really, really disappointed with our Western Illinois game. Just with the toughness that we didn't show. They beat us to every 50-50 ball. They beat us on every 0 board. I just was not very happy. And so we had to take a couple of days to refocus and review some things. And then, know,
tipped off for Eastern yesterday and had a really good showing and I'm actually going through that film this morning so marking some things in that but I thought we were a lot lot better defensively and toughness wise.
Gary D Stocker (03:55.141)
And let's talk about Gracie Kelsey. And again, I watched most of the games. The IO game was on Big 10 Plus. I couldn't get that. I was not happy. We talked about the teams, but she's gone up against some bigs in most of those games. Talk about her development from a freshman injury and where she is right now.
Amy Eagan (03:57.369)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Amy Eagan (04:04.332)
Yeah.
Amy Eagan (04:13.452)
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know, I would tell you the first thing is it doesn't surprise me, know, recruiting that kid, watching that kid in high school, watching what she did her freshman year before she had her ACL injury and the direction she was headed. I'm not really surprised. I mean, I think...
I think in my mind and what I see of her day in and day out, she's very good. And I think I probably believe that more than she even believes that. And I think that's one thing I've kind of always told her. I think that, you know, she is really just keeps getting better and better and she invites the battles. You know, she knew it was going to be tough against Iowa and really just battled and battled and battled against them who were a lot bigger, a lot probably faster and a lot stronger than her.
She doesn't back down, you know, she's a competitive kid and then, you know, playing against Mia, who's just so skilled and so talented. I thought, you know, we played her way too many minutes, first of all, I think I played her 35 minutes and she's used to playing like 26, 25, 26. I should have played Anna a little bit more in that game, but I thought, you know, when you look at the first quarter and the second quarter, she matched up really, really well with her and then she got tired, I think.
a little bit. So she's really had to battle. mean, you know that the post position it's it's hard. I mean, you've got to you got to be physical. I would say to like off of off of Gracie Kelsey looking at Anna McCarn, you know in that Iowa game. If you if you rewatch that what she did for us defensively, she's getting better and better with her positioning and better and better with understanding what we need of her on a day in day out basis.
Amy Eagan (06:01.09)
You know, she's letting us coach her hard. She's working hard. And again, I should have played her more in Western. But I thought yesterday she saw some benefits of that. You I think she was three for three from the field and just really is kind of starting to, as a freshman, become a sophomore, you know, with it. So really happy with what she's doing. We just got to keep her in that direction.
Gary D Stocker (06:24.529)
And we talked before we started recording this morning, 13 players scored at Eastern Illinois University yesterday. You don't hardly ever see that many scoring. I the game was a substantial win. That's kind of a strange occurrence.
Amy Eagan (06:35.51)
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, again, I'll continue to watch, but, know, we started subbing if you want to call them our bench, but, you know, with about seven minutes to go in that fourth quarter. And, I thought they did a really, really good job of continuing to, to defend and rebound and do the things that we had talked about in the last couple of days and how we had coached them in the last couple of days. and,
It was nice that they got to see some minutes, know, because I'm going tell you what, you know, they're in a hard position. They're in a hard position and being a part of a team, sometimes you don't always get all the extreme, you know, benefits of it. Sometimes you have to be, play a little bit harder piece of the team. And I think, you know, the bench sometimes is that. they, the last couple of days, they have been playing really, really, really.
hard, you know, and making that first group better. And so I was glad that they got to see some benefits of it. And they they fared well. I mean, you saw even Justice. Yes, it was Justice's birthday. So she got the and one and made the free throw. then Yovanna ran the floor really hard and got the end one and made the free throw. So I was really, really happy for them. It was a really good team effort yesterday.
Gary D Stocker (07:44.347)
Yeah. Aw.
Gary D Stocker (08:00.827)
And of course the girls have scattered to their families. I guess that's what they had today. And when do they come back? what does a, tell the listeners what a post-holiday season practice looks like, getting ready for what's gonna be a tough common season.
Amy Eagan (08:11.702)
Yeah. Well, if you've looked at our schedule at all, I mean, we come back and we play on the 29th and then we play on the first and then we play on the third and then we play on the sixth. So we have four games back to back to back to back, which our kids would prefer that over practice. I think we need more practice, but they prefer that over practice, I'm sure. But so they all, most of them left last night when we got back.
And so they're all at their destinations of where they're at, whether that's family or friends or whatever that is right now. And so they have all today, they have all through the 25th and then they'll come back the morning of the 26th and we'll practice the evening of the 26th and get back after it. And then we'll practice the 27th and then 28th we'll game prep and 29th we'll play. So we don't have too many practices.
You know, I wouldn't mind having two days going back to the old school stuff. Now they, they're not going to want that, but no, we, get right back after it. And so we give them a few workouts that they need to do over, over break just to stay, you know, just to stay in it and stay with their conditioning and that kind of stuff. But really I want them to have some time to enjoy family and friends and get away just a little bit because it is a long season.
Gary D Stocker (09:07.183)
Hahaha
Gary D Stocker (09:26.417)
Absolutely.
Gary D Stocker (09:31.247)
And then just kind of a nuanced question, they don't lose much conditioning being gone four or five days, do they?
Amy Eagan (09:37.793)
No, no, I mean, typically, you know, again, what they say is after three days, you start losing some conditioning stuff. so usually like, you know, I would prefer today, they probably don't need to do anything because they played yesterday or just like a light, you know, light stuff. But tomorrow they need to have a little bit of a conditioner and then if they want to take 24th and 25th off, you know, that's, that's okay. But because we'll get them back in shape on the 26 and 27.
Gary D Stocker (10:01.957)
Yeah.
Gary D Stocker (10:07.717)
And then coach finally, you know I'm always fascinated with talent because I make the connection that talent and athletics is the same concept as talent and everything else. And let's talk Iowa, Iowa State, fabulous D1 basketball game. We know that we went to Iowa, tough matchup as ever. And then I watched the Yukon Iowa game on think a Saturday afternoon. We're talking different worlds here. And how do you logically look at that from a professional coaching perspective?
perspective.
Amy Eagan (10:37.74)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think obviously from our perspective, you know, being a mid major and then a P4, you're going to see a lot of difference in athleticism, height sometimes, maybe like physicalness, stature of them, you know, those skill work sometimes those kind of things. I think that's definitely going to be the case. Now, between Iowa and Yukon, I think that's pretty similar. I think some of that
You know, and I know UConn beat him pretty, pretty bad, but I think some of that, you know, when you get to that level and you have equal or close to equal talent is matchups, you know, and how you play. And I was just a different team. And so, you know, when they, when they're playing UConn, they're going to match up differently with UConn as well, if that makes sense, where, you know, maybe UConn plays a little bit more guard and, and I was playing double post, you know? And so,
it becomes just kind of about some mismatch, some matchups and those kind of things. But definitely I think the talent there from P4 to P4 is very, very similar.
Gary D Stocker (11:47.909)
Well, Amy, I know you're at home with your family. I wish you the best for the holiday season as always, and we'll look forward to getting together again for the podcast after the start of the year. And for Amy Egan, I'm Gary Stocker with the Amy Egan Show, the Newport University Head Coach.
Amy Eagan (12:04.526)
What are you doing in the office then?
Gary D Stocker (12:10.5)
With Amy Egan, I'm Gary Stocker.
Still screwing it up. Thanks again for listening to the Amy Egan Show with Lyndenwood University Head Women's Basketball Coach Amy Egan. Coach, we'll talk again soon.
Amy Eagan (12:16.546)
Yeah.
Amy Eagan (12:24.899)
Thanks Gary, have a good Christmas.
Gary D Stocker (12:26.811)
Thank you.