The New Mexico women’s basketball team excited its fans with song and dance at the Lobo Howl on Friday. However, Tuesday’s media day was all business.
Head coach Yvonne Sanchez said Tuesday, that she is not looking to build a team that is good for a year. The four-year head coach said she has been building her program up to have a much longer run than the 2015-16 campaign.
However, that doesn’t mean her expectations for this season are low.
“They need to understand that we’re New Mexico again, we’re significant again, we’ve built a program instead of one good team,” Sanchez said. “It’s a good feeling, and I told them ‘it’s a good feeling to have, to be respected.’ I think they deserve to be respected. We can’t rest our laurels on it, but I think they deserve to be respected.”
Sanchez is coming off of her best year during her tenure as New Mexico’s head coach (21-13, 14-4 Mountain West). The 2014-15 squad put together the longest winning streak in program history and was the only team under Sanchez so far to finish above .500 in conference play.
Despite last season’s success, Sanchez said she doesn’t want to be associated only with a previous team. Her focus is on the club at the present moment.
“I don’t want to ride on that team’s coattails because that team was special,” Sanchez said. “But I do think the team we have can create their own identity, create their own moments and have their own feel.”
One of the appeals of this upcoming team is its depth at every position. Sanchez said she has been very pleased with the work ethic and potential from her freshman class.
Even though the Lobos have some high-profile names among their four returning starters, Sanchez said all positions are open for discussion. It will be the work her players put in that determines playing time.
“We want to be a really deep team that can just go in and out, and I’m not hesitant right now to play anybody,” Sanchez said. “It’s the little details that they have to clean up that is going to determine how much and who is going to play.”
Forward Khadijah Shumpert likely has a starting spot that only she can lose. The three-year senior player under Sanchez said her role on the team has moved from workhorse to team leader.
Sanchez said the 6-footer from Minneapolis has not been taking her ‘team captain’ title for granted in the offseason. While Shumpert is well known in the league for her inside presence both on offense and defense, the forward has now added a 15- to 17-foot jump shot to her arsenal.
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Without question, Shumpert said, this team is looking even better than the team that finished second in the Mountain West and made a conference championship appearance.
“The level of intensity has definitely changed from last year’s practices to this year’s,” she said. “Where we are in practice and not even had a game yet is probably where we were midseason (last year).”
With the loss of last year’s star senior Antiesha Brown, Sanchez said players are going to have to step up in her absence. Shumpert and co-captain Bryce Owens have already been asked to fill some major leadership shoes in Brown’s absence, but the Lobos will likely turn to guard Cherise Beynon to fill the scoring void that Brown left.
“It’s going to be different since I wasn’t the key player, and now I can probably be one of them,” Beynon said. “I’m just going to keep working on my game, working on my jump shot, be a threat – driver, rebounder – just an overall game. That way I can keep them on their toes.”
Although Beynon said she wasn’t a key player last year, she was definitely a major contributor. In her first season in Cherry and Silver, Beynon was named an All-Mountain West Freshman, started all 34 games, averaged 5.9 rebounds in conference play (15th in the MW) and her 1.8 steals per contest during MW play was good enough for 6th in the conference.
Sanchez said she has tried to relay to her team that they are going to be one of the teams in the conference that other teams are gunning for. Beynon said she doesn’t want to get into the mentality of being a top-tiered team. She said she thrives when being the underdog.
“I agree with coach, but sometimes I feel like you still need to be the hunter,” Beynon said. “We still need to hunt our way to get to the NCAA tournament, even though we are going to be one of the top contenders. We always have to look at it like we’re in second place, and never like we’re the top dog.”
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at assistantsports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
