Women’s Basketball: Brodhead era underway at UL 10/14/12

Eric Narcisse, The Advertiser, October 14, 2012

The UL Ragin’ Cajuns women’s basketball team is only seven practices into the 2012-13 season and they have quickly learned that first-year head coach Garry Brodhead and his coaching staff are adamant about two things "” effort and defense.

Brodhead has delivered the message loud and clear that regardless of what a player brings to the team offensively, if they don’t give all-out-effort on every single play and defend consistently they will not see much playing time for the Cajuns.

"I’m not trying to learn our players," Brodhead said. "Our players have to learn me. Our fans can expect when they come to watch us play that we are going to pull up our socks, tie down our shoes and really get after it."We’re going to play hard, super aggressively on defense and we want to be aggressive on offense. That’s my style of play. Our strength is to score off of transition and pressure the basketball fullcourt."

The Cajuns, who are going to be extremely young this season with five freshmen, five sophomores, a junior and one senior, have a total of 12 players this year which includes five returners highlighted by former St. Thomas More stars Brooklyn Arceneaux, Robbie Brown and Brandi Schambough.Brodhead and his coaching staff cut several players from the team upon arrival and have brought in seven of their own recruits including locals Kia Wilridge (St. Thomas More), KeKe Veal (St. Thomas More), Adrienne Prejean (Lafayette High) as well as freshman Jasmine Mills of Assumpiton and junior college transfers Ashley Benjamin (Tyler JC) and Byronesha Santiago (Lon Morris unior College)."We’re all new to the program," Brodhead said. "We’re all learning as we go, but I think it’s great for the players because they get to learn exactly what we’re trying to do. Our coaching staff knows exactly what we want and how we want it. We’re very demanding."

Although it is still very early, Brodhead has been impressed by how well his freshmen Wilridge, Veal, Prejean, Mills and Sylvanna Okde have performed in the early going.

"The freshmen are doing a good job," Brodhead said. "They are working hard, but they are still trying to find their way. I’m not one to not play a freshman because they are a freshman. I’m going to throw them out there, because there is a lot of pressure for them to play."

Wilridge is one freshman who has already caught the attention of the coaching staff with her relentless effort on both sides of the court.

"We always knew that Kia was talented, but I’ll tell you she goes hard every single possession," Brodhead said."She reminds me of my daughter Ashley when she played, because Kia worries about making mistakes because they want to be perfect. The best thing about Kia is that she wants to be coached and she wants to win so badly."While a lot of attention has revolved around the freshmen, the key for the Cajuns is Arceneaux, who appears to be healthy and primed for a breakout season."Brooklyn is a talented kid," Brodhead said. "She’s working hard, but the question on her is whether she’ll be consistent every day. There is no question that she’s talented and she knows that she’s talented.

"We know she can become better and we have her working as hard as she possibly can so that we can get the Brooklyn Arceneaux that we know she can be. So far in team practices, she has stepped it up."