Photo By Josh Schaefer/Huskie Athletics/GetMyPhoto.ca

By Ben Tompkins

Women's Basketball Preview

Huskies Women’s Basketball team extremely excited for upcoming season despite very unusual circumstances

Sep 13, 2021 | 10:21 AM

With the Canada West season set to begin shortly, there are a ton of question marks surrounding this season and how it will pan out. For a lot of teams, like the Huskies, they are trying to shake off the rust and get back to a sense of something that is closer to normal.

“It’s a wildcard right now, just to see how people respond and how they come back from the pandemic and what they’ve been able to do,” said head coach of the women’s team Lisa Thomaidis. “I think our veteran leadership is really going to be key. They really set the tone and then the others follow. It’s really going to be reliant on them to show the way and to lead by example but also go through their experiences.”

For Thomaidis and her team, of course, there is a lot of excitement to be getting back into action since this will be the first time competing in almost two years.

“Let’s get back out there, let’s compete, let’s keep growing and getting better. Having not played in over a year now, there’s going to be a lot of growing pains in trying to get back to where we were and a lot of newcomers that are going to need to get up to speed. We’re really just excited to get back together again and seeing what we can do and having a lot of fun doing it.”

Having last season cancelled has also put some large differences in who will be joining this year’s squad as there will be multiple recruiting classes, along with foreign-based players who the organization has yet to see in person.

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“There are so many question marks right now with two recruiting classes coming in,” said Thomaidis. “I got a chance to work with some of them last year, but we’ve got a few people from Europe that I’m really excited to see. Up until now, I’ve only seen them play on film, so once we get them out on the court, it’ll be exciting just to see what we’re working with and how they’re going to fit into the system.”

It is safe to say there will be a lot to figure out from the coaching end but Thomaidis is confident with the players they have in place and the reputation the team has built.

“I think we’ve always prided ourselves on our strong work ethic and how hard our players work on their game and how hard they train. I think we’re going to lean heavily onto that this year to make sure that we’re as physically prepared as possible. We’ll be relying on a lot of our leadership and the players that have won Nationals and know what it takes to get there and imparting that on the rest of our players. They know the type of commitment that it takes to be the best.”

The first game of the season for the women’s basketball team is Oct. 29 in Brandon, MB.

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