Women’s basketball draws inspiration from visit by Wooden-era player

As hip-hop music boomed throughout Pauley Pavilion, UCLA
women’s basketball’s Atonye Nyingifa took her turn in the latest practice
drill. The forward dribbled into the lane, niftily Euro-stepped by a defender and finished
by coolly finger-rolling the ball in.

On the sidelines, players and scout team alike cheered and clapped in support of the spectacle Nyingifa had put on.

Meanwhile, at midcourt, coach Cori Close shouted directions toward players at the opposite basket, where another drill was taking place.

With all the commotion, the UCLA women’s basketball team was in full swing Monday afternoon as the team kicked off the 2013-2014 season with its first official practice.

“We’re feeling good. … I’m really excited for the new season,” said Nyingifa, a redshirt senior. “It’s a really different team as far as just the aura, and just personality-wise, and even skill-wise. We’re totally different from last year and it’s going to be good.”

After graduating three of the their top-five scorers from last season, and welcoming four newcomers to the team, the Bruins have revamped much of their roster.

With so much change, Close began the session with a little surprise to bring the team closer together.

Close brought in Rafer Johnson, a former Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon and former UCLA basketball player under coach John Wooden, to teach the players how to put their socks and shoes on correctly, just like Wooden taught his players during his UCLA tenure. Johnson then explained the two lessons Wooden wanted the players to take away from this exercise.

“All he asked, all coach Wooden asked, was you try to be the best you can be in that day. That’s it,” Close said. “Then he said, ‘It doesn’t matter where you come from, what race you are, what socioeconomics you are, what religion you are, it doesn’t matter. We all start putting our shoes and socks on the same way, so now we’re ready to be a team.’ So it starts with that.”

With the preseason underway, the team can now start practicing 20 hours a week together with coaches on the court, as opposed to two hours a week with coaches over the offseason.

But the players didn’t let all that time apart from the coaches stop them from improving their game, their athleticism and their leadership skills, Close noted.

“I’ve seen so much growth (from the team). This is my 21st season (coaching) and this has been one of the biggest jumps in growth, both in our team culture as well as our individual skills, that I’ve ever seen,” Close said. “As a collective group, we have made huge habit-changing growths.”

One specific improvement senior guard Thea Lemberger pointed to was the transformation in the players’ physical builds and how valuable that should be this season.

“(The strength coaches) spent a lot of time reshaping our bodies so we’re ready for the wear and tear,” Lemberger said. “It looks like it’s going to pay off cause we’re a little thin (depth-wise) right now. We’re playing with seven healthy players so our bodies (are) more equipped to take the pounding, take the physicality and all that.”

The lack of depth has become a growing concern for the team, especially in the backcourt, as sophomore guard Kari Korver was recently sidelined for the season with an ACL tear and freshman guard Dominique Williams has yet to be determined eligible to play this year.

Add in a lack of star individual players that the team relied on last year, and the Bruins have had to undertake a much different approach with this year’s squad.

“Last year, people would say we have a lot of talent. This year, we have a lot of hard workers,” Nyingifa said.

“Where we lack in strength, we’re going to build in mind. So we’re going to be smarter, and we’re going to play a lot more together and a lot more in sync this year than last year. (Last season), sometimes it could be more individual-based, but now we’re going to play as a unit.”