New team, same mission

After winning a fourth state championship in five seasons, the Chipola Lady Indians begin the 2009-2010 season with a brand-new roster and familiar
expectations.

Chipola went 30-6 last season, and finished third in the national tournament.

Despite not returning a single player from that team, the Lady Indians begin the season ranked No. 3 in the nation in the National Junior College Athletic Association poll.

Remarkably, Chipola still ranks No. 2 in the Florida Community College Activities Association state poll, behind Gulf Coast, which is ranked No. 7 in the nation.

Still, the rankings represent high expectations for a team that has yet to play a game together.

“I was shocked we were put that high in both polls,” Chipola coach David Lane said. “It’s nice to get that respect from other coaches before we play a game, even with nobody back.”

While high expectations have become the norm for the Lady Indians due to their success under Lane — now in his sixth year at CC — the flip side is that
Chipola is now a target not just for teams in the Panhandle Conference, but teams around the state and the nation.

That’s a lesson this edition of the Lady Indians learned during the preseason.

“I talked with the kids after (Saturday’s jamboree in Tallahassee) about how for teams that played us close or beat us, they were really excited about it, more
than normal,” the coach said.

“The kids have to understand that they’ll get everybody’s best shot every night because of what we’ve done in the past. People are gunning for you.”

If the Lady Indians are to replicate the success of last year’s team, they’ll have to find a way to replace some very productive players.

Leading scorer and rebounder Latoya Williams (14 points per game, 10 rebounds per game), and Ashlie Billingslea (9.7 ppg, 3.8 assists per game) leave behind big voids in the lineup.

Chipola may not have someone to give it the post presence it had last season with Williams, Lenita Sanford and Marnesha Hall.

However, Lane said he believed this year’s team would be much stronger in the backcourt.

“We’ll be quite a bit different this year,” the coach said. “We won’t be as post-heavy, but I think we’ll get a lot more out of the guards. It will be similar to my second and third year here, when we had some really good guard play.

“Right now, we don’t have that one dynamic post player that we can count on.”

Chipola will need big seasons from former Indiana State point guard Jasmine Shaw and 5-foot, 6-inch freshman shooting guard Bianca Jarrett, who Lane called “the wild card” for the team.

“If (Jarrett) is on board with all of this and is what we need her to be, it will be a big bonus for us,” the coach said.

The 6-foot, 1-inch Trinity Valley transfer Tawatha Tucker could help provide some of the interior scoring the Lady Indians need this season.

However, Lane said it’s still too early to tell who he’ll be able to count on consistently during the season.

“Through six jamboree games, we’ve had different people who have helped us at times and different people who have hurt us at times,” said the coach.

He has yet to come up with a starting five for the team’s season-opener Monday against FCCJ in Jacksonville.

“For me, whoever starts isn’t as big a deal as who finishes. With a young group, we have to see who handles starting better than others, who’s preparing for the games, who can provide some energy to start games.”

Lane said it has been a challenge for him as a coach to prepare a brand-new team for the season — the first time he hasn’t had any returning players since taking the job.

“I don’t know if you can prepare for it,” the coach said of coaching a brand-new squad. “You’ve got to make sure that you can’t be skipping steps. You’ve got to go from ‘A’ to ‘B’ to ‘C.’ As a coach, you’ve got to make sure that you’re teaching all of those points.

“When you’ve got kids back, you may start at ‘C,’ or go through ‘A’ and ‘B’ really quick, because you know that those kids already know it.”

However, Lane said the positive to having a new team was that he gets to work with a clean slate, with no bad habits developed by returning players.

Lane also said he believed this year’s team could have better chemistry than last year’s, which didn’t always handle adversity well, according to the coach.

“It’s a group that enjoys being around each other better than last year’s team,” the coach said. “I think that was something we were missing last year.

“But we still haven’t gotten into the season, so it will be an interesting test when we’re down in a game — how do they respond? When playing time becomes a factor, winning and losing games, that will be the ultimate judge. I think that will be the big test to see how strong our chemistry is.”

The Lady Indians won’t have an easy road to start, playing the No. 2, No. 5, No. 13 and No. 14 teams in the NJCAA poll, all within the first three weeks of the season.

“We’re going to be pretty challenged right off the bat, regardless of ranking,” Lane said. “But we can’t worry too much about that. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re getting better day in and day out, keeping in mind that our goal is not to win every game in December and November.

“We want to go out there and really make sure that when the conference rolls around, we’re playing our best basketball.”