OKLAHOMA CITY — Big 12 women’s basketball coaches complained Wednesday that their players are seeing double.
Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly could see that his team struggled with the two 3-point lines, but even he was surprised by data collected from his practices.
“We film and chart everything,” Fennelly said during the league’s media day, “and we found out that 85 percent of the 3-pointers were taken behind the men’s line. You can see our players looking down, trying to figure out which line is which.”
For college basketball, the men’s 3-point line was moved back 1 foot this season to 20 feet, 9 inches. For the women’s game, the arc remains at 19-9.
Texas coach Gail Goestenkors said the double lines became so confusing to the Longhorns she had both painted on the Texas women’s practice court so they would get accustomed to the difference.
Said Iowa State senior Amanda Nisleit: “Our coaches tell us the worst shot in basketball is when we have a toe on the line. So we find ourselves shooting behind both lines.”
Oklahoma State coach Kurt Budke said the rules committee for women’s college basketball made “a big mistake” by not moving back the line to the men’s distance. “It’s ridiculous having two lines down there,” he said.
Powerhouse conference.
Last year, the Big 12 became the first conference to have eight NCAA Tournament qualifiers go 8-0 in the first round. Five teams received at least one first-place vote in the 2008-09 Big 12’s preseason coaches poll.
“We can have a year where, if teams stay healthy and get hot, we can have legitimate national championship contenders,” Fennelly said.
Oklahoma, with twin towers Courtney and Ashley Paris returning for their senior year, is the coaches’ preseason pick to win the conference championship.
That’s their problem.
Colorado coach Kathy McConnell-Miller, when asked how, with a lineup that often will include four perimeter players, the Buffaloes will be able to stop the bigger teams in the conference: “Our philosophy is teams will have to adjust to us.”
Footnotes.
Texas’ Goestenkors already has become so popular in her second season in Austin, a clothing line — the Coach G Casual and Career Collections — is named for her. It is being distributed by the University Co-op, a fundraising organization. . . . Hall of Fame coach Leon Barmore, who retired from Louisiana Tech in 2002, is wearing a whistle again — as an assistant at Baylor under former pupil Kim Mulkey. . . . Kansas has lost touted freshman point guard Angel Goodrich for the season because of a torn ACL. . . . Iowa State’s Fennelly, on recruiting 5-foot-10 freshman guard Claire Rockall from Ireland: “She told me on the phone the only two places she had been to in the States were Orlando and New York. I told her Ames was about the same.”
