The 2016-2017 basketball season brings new beginnings for Bradley women’s basketball.
After a disappointing 9-22 season last year, Bradley fired former head coach Michael Brooks and brought in Andrea Gorski, who possesses a plethora of Missouri Valley Conference experience. Gorski played at Bradley from 1988-92 and spent three years as an assistant coach at Southern Illinois.
The season begins with a tough slate of non-conference opponents, including Kent State, Butler, Detroit, Saint Louis, Valparaiso and Wisconsin-Green Bay.
“Our non-conference schedule, you look at it and say, ‘There’s not a [power five] level [game],’ but we’re playing some mid-major powerhouses that have established programs,” Gorski said. “We’re going to find out really quick where we’re at and what we’ll need to improve on to make a push for Missouri Valley play.”
The conference schedule opens with a bang at Illinois State on New Year’s Day and concludes at home against the Redbirds as well. The women struggled on the road last season, managing only one win at Wichita State.
“For me, personally, there couldn’t be a better start than opening up against ISU,” Gorski said. “Winning on the road to me is just more of a state of mind than anything else. I also think playing on the road, your focus has to be on things you can control [like a] good inside/outside balance of shots, which I don’t think they’ve had in the past.”
Gorski said she and her staff are looking to transition into a new playing style on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor this season and have spent this off-season doing a lot of teaching to make the offense more fluid.
“[On offense] we don’t want to get stagnant and predictable, so [we’re playing more] off of each other rather than set patterns of offense,” Gorski said. “Right now, we’re still thinking a lot, which is never good if you want to be an aggressive team. Every week they’re getting better and more comfortable.”
Defensively, the Braves will employ a team style man-to-man defense, focusing on taking dribble penetration away and forcing tough shots as part of a collective, rather than a one-on-one, effort.
“Last year they were a good defensive team,” Gorski said. “Staying solid defensively gives you a lot of comfort when you’re on the road when maybe you’re not hitting as many shots. I’ve been really impressed with how hard they work and how coachable they are because we’ve had to teach them a whole different style offensively and defensively than what they’ve played in recent years, so it’s really been important that they’ve been open to and receptive to that, and they have been.”
This year, Bradley brings back strong leaders from last year’s team but also adds new faces, including four freshmen and Briana Gray, a transfer who sat out last year. The biggest loss from last year’s team was fifth-year senior point guard Kat Yelle, the orchestrator of last year’s offense.
“We lost a couple of players that logged some big minutes last year, also losing [Yelle] who was the main point guard,” Gorski said. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now, trying to fill that gap.”
It’s possible the point guard slot could be filled by freshmen Alona Johnson and Ryan Wilkins or by junior “swiss-army knife” Danielle Brewer, who has proved capable of playing multiple positions for the Braves.
“The point guard spot is a different beast,” Gorski said. “It’s hard for a freshman to come in and have the same success they did in high school. Right now we’re trying to sort out what’s our best option at point guard, and that’s really in the next two weeks the position we need to get sorted out the most.”
Though the Braves are relatively young, they have a troop of older leaders that will play a big role in determining how the younger players adapt. Juniors Danielle Brewer and Anneke Schlueter and senior Leti Lerma have significant experience in MVC play and bring great leadership qualities to this year’s team.
“They all bring three different leadership styles of play to our team; I love that, because you don’t want to have your leaders be the same type of player,” Gorski said. “Leti – who is just kind of the heart and soul of our team – she gets so much out of her 5-10 frame game in and game out. Dani is one of our best ball-handlers and probably our best defensive player right now. Anneke can hit the three ball, but what we’re really looking for her to do is to score in a variety of ways, and I think she’s been open to that.
The Braves start their season with a home opener against Missouri – Saint Louis at 2 p.m. Nov. 5 at Renaissance Coliseum.
