Info From Monday Night Coach's Show

[MikeADore]

A few things that caught my ear during coach Ralph’s appearance on Commodore Hour Monday night:

* She confirmed they will look to the transfer portal to “add a couple of experienced players” to help offset the youth of next year’s team, which leads me to believe they’re thinking grad students again. She didn’t go into detail, but by my reckoning, we’re presently at 11 players for next season, and eight of them are freshmen and sophomores.

* She touted the leadership she expects from Jordyn Cambridge, Iyana Moore and Sacha Washington along with the comment about finding some veteran help in the portal. No mention about Demi Washington and Yaubryon Chambers, which leads me to believe they will eventually announce they’re moving along. Still, all the coaches seem to purposely not say anything conclusive.

* She said they’re having meetings with players this week and preparing for spring workouts. I assume that mostly means weights and cardio training. Also, the staff is recruiting.

* I’ve said before that I think the real rebuild starts next year. Nine of the 11 players I’m counting were signed by coach Ralph, and seven were players she actually recruited (Iyanna Moore and Sacha Washington were Stephanie White recruits that coach Ralph wound up signing). The only two not signed by the present staff are Cambridge and Bella LaChance.

Shea seems extremely confident about the future. Many of us heard her rousing comments in her SEC tournament postgame press conference. During Monday night’s Commodore Hour, she told Kevin Ingram that she had told radio announcer Jake Lyman not to get too comfortable having time off in March because they won’t be doing that any more. She sure seems to mean it. I know she is very high on the incoming, five-player class.

“We’re ready to turn the page,” she said. “It’s time to continue this journey, to close the chapter that we just had and to start, really, a new book. We have a lot of work to do, and we’ve already started doing it. It’s exciting.”

* On Sacha Washington’s improvement at season’s end and her growth in maturity: “We saw what Sacha can do when she plays with confidence and discipline and focus…What we went through this year turned Sacha into the beginnings of the monster, in a good way, that she’s going to be. I think she started to understand that toward the end.”

* In answer to a question about Jordyn (achilles) and Iyanna (ACL), she said Jordyn is a bit ahead in her rehab process and is running and doing jumping drills. She said both are expected to be ready to play when they go to Italy in late August.