Kristy Curry likes what she sees in Tide women's first workout
As the first practice of the season was finishing up for the Alabama women’s basketball team on Monday morning at Foster Auditorium, coach Kristy Curry reminded her players that this is her 29th season coaching basketball. Out of all four of her years at Alabama, she felt this season’s first practice stood out.
“I thought today, we’re a little bit further ahead than we normally are,” Curry said. “I feel like it’s the best first day that we’ve had since I’ve been here.”
The smooth ride through the first practice was aided by the Crimson Tide’s seven returning juniors, including four starters from last season. However, Alabama does not have a senior on the roster and will have to rely on its talented freshman players, Ashley Knight and Jordan Lewis, to be ready for the first game in only 30 days of practice.
“We’ve got some new faces that have a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but a very different level of quickness and athleticism and size,” Curry said. “So now, we feel like we’ll be a group that’s deeper than we’ve been, as quick and as athletic as we’ve been, and then we have more size.”
It’s athleticism and quickness that the team worked on this summer in hopes to improve on last season's 15-16 losing record. Curry credits the offseason commitment, from transforming body-types by certain players to improved practice habits as a collective team.
“I think the strength of this team is their character and their work ethic,” Curry said. “How they go every day, and their commitment, that really solves a lot. The one thing that we’re not doing is coaching effort, and that’s the greatest thing you can do as a coach is not have to coach effort day in and day out.”
Along with new faces the Crimson Tide will also have a new place to play. Regular season games will now be held in the larger Coleman Coliseum, which includes the first game of 2016 against New Orleans on Nov. 11. The team’s previous home, Foster Auditorium, will now become a practice facility.
“We’re fired up,” Curry said. “To move to the Coliseum we have 90 court-side seats that are sold out. There’s so much excitement. We loved being at Foster. We loved for that to be our home on a daily basis. We've had some great wins in (Foster Auditorium), but there has also been a lot of great wins and a great tradition in Coleman, and we're excited to pick that back up.”