Lady Vikings, Tigers ready to hoop it up
Seasons begin with high expectations
A&M Consolidated girls basketball coach Nelda Gilbert enters her second season as head coach with a young, but more experienced roster.
Bryan's Beth Jesurun has had a long and extremely successful head coaching career, but faces a new challenge in her first season as coach of the Lady Vikings.
A&M Consolidated, which finished fourth in District 13-5A a year ago, opens the season at Fort Bend Hightower on Tuesday, while defending district champion Bryan begins the year at Willis.
Gilbert's standout sophomore center goes home with her after practice. Nelda's 6-foot-4 daughter Karla will join the team after the conclusion of the volleyball season. As the freshman newcomer of the year in 13-5A last season, Gilbert averaged 14.1 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks a game.
Her improved mobility from volleyball might make her better during basketball season. The center hasn't developed all of her skills on a court, though.
"There are things that my child does without me being around, and one of them is dancing," Nelda Gilbert said said. "If I pop in and catch her dancing, I'm wondering where those movements are on my court, because she is not giving them to me."
Senior Sarah Dailey averaged 10.3 points for the 17-12 Lady Tigers, and she is the top returning 3-point shooter after hitting 23 as a junior. Versatile Consolo Palmer averaged 7.8 points and 6.6 rebounds.
The Bryan Lady Vikings, who were within a win of the state tournament last year, have two major contributors back from that team.
Lekendra "Cat" Clemons is the only starter back. Clemons, a returning All-Brazos Valley player, averaged 8.4 points per game with three steals and 2.4 assists. She started most games on a Bryan team that matched the best run in school history. The Lady Vikings finished 35-6, falling to eventual state champion Rockwall.
Clemons combined the ability to penetrate and score with a nice outside shooting touch to create a tough matchup.
"You've got to have somebody who wants the ball when the pressure is on," Jesurun said. "You have to have go-to players. That separates a good team from a great team."
Although others played, point guard Micah Marshall was inserted at key times in games to force her to get experience. She got a wealth of high-pressure experience when she was forced into extended playing time during the Region II semifinal game.
Marshall played enough in the regular season to earn second-team all-district honors in 13-5A. She averaged 6.4 points per contest, with 2.4 steals and 3.1 assists.
The biggest change for Bryan is on the bench, where Jesurun takes over for John Shelton, who took the new basketball job at Rudder.
Jesurun will have her Lady Vikings play multiple defenses built around a man-to-man, and they will employ a motion offense, a significant change from Shelton's approach.
"We have no true post players, with some threes and fours playing the 5 [center position]," said Jesurun, who has coached the motion offense for years. "Anybody can post up anybody. Anybody can pull off the block and get outside and hit threes, and we are capable of doing that."
Jesurun has the credentials to back her changes. Her career coaching record is 319-144. At Humble, where she had been since 2001, she was 145-65 and led the Lady Wildcats to the state championship game in the 2005-06 season. That 31-9 team lost in overtime to Arlington Bowie for the title.
"We want to build on the foundation that John set, and we've added quite a bit to the repertoire," Jesurun said. "We need to be executing that better and thinking as we move."
Nelda Gilbert believes more depth, provided by eight juniors among others, will help her in a quest to climb higher in the district despite several experienced teams. She has used scrimmages to encourage her players to shoot more from outside.
Gilbert's changes include moving 6-foot Danyetta Williams to a small forward position.
"We need them to be more versatile, and not just say this girl just plays post only," Gilbert said. "All my kids can shoot, but they just don't believe then can shoot. You can see it in practice when they are not doing a regular drill."
District play won't begin until December, but Gilbert expects a close race.
"I can see about five teams being really close unless one team just breaks wide up and says, 'OK, here it is,'" Gilbert said. "I have a lot of confidence in our girls. We finished fourth and I sure don't expect anything below fourth. Hopefully, it's second or first, but better than where we finished last year."
• David Campbell's e-mail is david.campbell@theeagle.com