For Tallassee girls basketball, the key to winning is toughness, physicality and defense. These are the principles of the program, now under the tutelage of first-year coach Richard Taylor. This year’s team has reflected that in the last three play dates this summer.
At the end of last season, Tallassee graduated senior center Destiny Daniels as well as leading scorer Jhakhia Anderson, leaving a substantial hole in the offensive scheme and at the bottom of the zone defense. The remaining four starters, all sophomores and juniors, are returning for the Tigers, reflecting the team’s youth and capacity to grow and improve.
The first play date at Wetumpka highlighted some potential struggles for the squad.
“Once pressure hit us, we don’t know how to handle it right,” said Taylor, about his team’s performance on the day. “Right now, adversity hits and we just fall apart.”
One of the main struggles the Tigers faced was rebounding.
“One thing me and the coaches are talking about is, we gotta learn to crash the boards,” Taylor said. “On offense, four people should crash the boards and we gotta have one person get back. On defense, all five people need to crash. I told two of my guards, every time they just standing there. I told them, ‘You got to go get the rebound.’”
At that play date, however, Tallassee was missing a key player, junior guard Cheyann Easterling. With Easterling on the floor, the Tigers get a substantial boost in confidence on the offensive end of the floor.
“(Easterling) helped,” Taylor said. “She’s an athlete, she’s really tough. She really helped the ball handling that we needed and passing. She plays the passing lane as well as anyone I know, so she really helped us out.”
In the paint, Tallassee has sophomore London O’Neal and Reese Gough — two sophomores who know how to work the defense by flashing, looking for the ball and finishing close to the basket. They bring a lot to the team in terms of physicality on defense as well as offense.
For the offensive scheme Tallassee plans to run this season, O’Neal and Gough will have to be dominant around the rim.
“We will have to feed the post,” Taylor said. “We’re not a three-point shooting team, so we try to get to the paint. Either we feed the ball to the post or we drive the ball to the paint. I do think if we get out and transition, we can score with the best teams out there.”
Now that playdates are over for the season, Taylor has the girls in the weight room, in the gym conditioning and especially working on improving their basketball foundation and fundamental skills like passing, layups and shifting on defense. With the collective hard work and dedication to winning of this program, Tallassee is a team that will come from behind to win.