The University of Memphis women’s basketball team is looking to improve upon a 13-18 season in the program’s first year in the American Athletic Conference, and with four returning starters and an influx of talent via a six-player recruiting class coach Melissa McFerrin will have one of the deepest rosters of her seven-year tenure at her disposal. At the team’s media day earlier this month I talked to McFerrin about the upcoming season and the new roster additions:
Q: What did you learn from your first season in the American Athletic Conference that you can use going into this one?
McFerrin: “Well we learned that we weren’t talented enough nor deep enough, I will tell you that very very honestly. That was a move that we had talked about for six months, but until you’ve actually done it there’s no way to know what it’s like to be on a court with Louisville or with UConn. I do think that our players were emotionally very very ready to compete against those teams, but obviously from a talent perspective and from a depth perspective we weren’t ready to compete, but now we know — there are no surprises any longer. Now it becomes continuing to build our talent and getting our focus right and increasing our depth, but we’re excited about the team coming back and being able to do that.”
Q: With the exception of Pa’Sonna Hope you guys return just about everybody from a year ago.
McFerrin: “Pa’Sonna is the only senior starter that we lost. We didn’t lose a lot of scoring and rebounding from a year ago. Most of our talent was freshmen and sophomores last year, so now most of our talent is juniors, sophomores and I think we’ve added a couple of really nice pieces in our freshman class.”
Q: At times it seemed like Ariel Hearn was having to do everything last year. What can you guys do to take some of the scoring load off her shoulders?
McFerrin: “Well Ariel will always be that player. Ariel’s a great player and she likes to score and she’s known as a scorer, but also a year ago we didn’t have a healthy Mooriah Rowser, and I think that really impacted the kind of shots and the way that we had to lean on Ariel to score. This year I think you’re gonna see Asianna Fuqua-Bey be a better scorer, maybe a double-double kind of kid, low double-double. Last year she was probably eight (points) and eight (rebounds). I think Asia can be a 10 and 10 player this year. Breigha Wilder-Cochran will not have to play as fatigued. She has really improved her shooting this year, so I think we’ll see her begin to score a little bit more, but the player that we’ve probably brought in that we think is going to be immediately impactful is Brianna Wright, our junior college player that was rated the third best junior college post player in the country last year. Very soft hands, massive body strength and explosiveness, we’re looking forward to her. She’s going to have to prove that she can do it in the American Athletic Conference every night, but we’re certainly relying on her. I think Taylor Williams is going to give us additional scoring as a sophomore this year, and I think we’ve got at least a couple of freshman that are going to make our rotation.”
Q: You talked about Wright, but of the other incoming players and freshman what can you tell us about them and do you see any of them coming in and making an immediate impact?
McFerrin: “I do. I think if you look at our freshman, I’ll start with Cheyenne Creighton, she was on the U-18 Canadian National Team. She has a body that’s already ready for college athletics. It will take her a little while. She’s more of a face up four player so it’s gonna take her a little bit to learn the system, but she likes to bang, she’s got perimeter shooting skills and she’s a very good rebounder. Brea Elmore I think is a little like Ariel Hearn was as a youngster. She has the ability to put the ball in the basket, she’s very athletic, a good runner, and a combo guard type player. You’ll likely see Damonique Miller become our defensive specialist — an on the ball defender and very athletic player. Amber Holmes, coming out of Overton High School here, adds depth at our point guard spot. Amber’s a natural runner and high intensity player so I think she’ll give us that, and Alisha Celestine, a 6’3” post player out of New Orleans that will give us some depth. She’s a developing player but she’ll give us some depth.”
