The AGWSR girls basketball team, like other girls basketball teams in Iowa, began practices Monday under the leadership of first-year head coach David Koop.
The Cougars are coming off a 13-10 season that featured its fair share of ups and downs. Head Coach David Koop says focusing on some clear objectives will help the team take a step forward.
“It comes down to we’ve got to shoot free throws better,” Koop says. “I’d like to be closer to 75 percent. Our assist to turnover ratio was point something instead of one or two, you know, just taking care of the basketball better and trying to be positive on assists. And then just making three-point shots. I think a lot of times when you look at the film from last year, teams played us in a 2-3 zone pretty consistently, not a whole lot of man. And just tried to force us to make threes, and at times we struggled to do that. So just building that conference from outside, we have the shooters to do it. They just got to have the confidence in themselves and get teams to play us in a few more different defenses, knowing they can’t just sit in a zone all night.”
The top two scorers from last year’s team are back. Senior center Josie Kuper averaged a double-double of 15.1 points and 10.9 rebounds per game last year. Point guard Trevyn Smith scored 10.4 points and had a team-high 2.3 steals per game. At another guard position, junior Piper Smith is expected to be a key contributor, and could step up as a three-point shooting threat, with well over half of her shot attempts coming from beyond the arc.
The Cougars will begin the season Friday, November 22 at Madrid.
David Koop interview:
