When coach Theresa Grentz’s Fighting Illini play host to Michigan in Huff Hall on Sunday, they will be playing their sixth game in 10 days and their eighth in 15 days.
This NBA-type schedule demands a deep, capable bench. Grentz thinks she has one, thanks to the addition of new players such as Lisa Guarneri, the 5-foot-9-inch freshman guard and high school honor student from Piscataway, N.J.
Guarneri came off the bench, scored seven points, made five assists and dived for loose balls all over the Assembly Hall floor last Sunday when more than 10,000 fans watched No. 13 Illini hammer No. 21 Colorado 88-48 in a network TV game.
“Lisa is spirited,” said Grentz, who first met Guarneri when she was a 5th grader at Grentz’s summer camp at Rutgers. “You can see she truly loves the game. She loves diving aggressively for loose balls and making passes. That’s freshman enthusiasm. I can’t bring that to the team. She handled that herself.”
Two other factors contributed to Illinois’ improved depth: Extra emphasis on conditioning and Grentz’s making what she called “unpopular lineup switches” early in the season.
“We pushed harder on conditioning than any other year,” Grentz said. “I knew Colorado was very concerned about our size, but I don’t think it knew we could run as we did.”
Going into the season, Grentz welcomed back all five starters from last year’s Big Ten title team: Ashley Berggren, Nicole Vasey, Alicia Sheeler, Tauja Catchings and Krista Reinking. The coach, looking beyond a Big Ten title, wanted more.
“I really wanted the younger players to step up, but it wasn’t happening bringing them in off the bench,” Grentz said.
So, she started some of them. All-American candidate Berggren went three games as a reserve.
“We made very unpopular lineup switches,” said Grentz, “but people became more familiar with their roles. No question, we are getting deeper.”
They were right: The Big Ten race, after the dozen days of conference play, backs up preseason forecasts that said the Illini and Iowa, winner of the conference tournament one year ago, were the teams to beat.
Don’t be deceived by Iowa’s 6-6 overall record. Coach Angie Lee’s team played through most of December without two injured starters, 6-foot All-American candidate Angela Hamblin and freshman point guard Cara Consuega. Both returned to the lineup last weekend when Iowa bumped its Big Ten record to 3-0 with a 78-69 victory before 5,345 fans at Penn State.
Sleeper Badgers: Looking for a “sleeper” in the Big Ten? Don’t give up on Wisconsin, which has lost its first three league games. The Badgers played 11 of their first 14 games on the road. They played, among other places, in the Dead River Classic in Orono, Maine; in the Northern Lights tournament in Anchorage, Alaska; and in games at Penn State, Illinois, Georgia and Purdue.
“I think my players have seen every movie there is to see on the movie channels in the hotels,” said coach Jane Albright-Dieterle. “It’s very hard to stay focused on the road.”
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But payback time is coming. Starting Jan. 20 when they dedicate the new 17,142-seat Kohl Center in Madison, the Badgers will play seven of their final 10 games at home. More than 6,000 tickets a game have been sold for women’s games in the new gym.
“We’re glad the schedule happened the way it did,” Albright-Dieterle said. “We can’t wait until February when we’re in our new arena.”
Rivalry continued: Jasmine Strange of Loyola and Eileen McMahon of Illinois-Chicago, rival coaches in Saturday’s 3 p.m. Midwestern Collegiate Conference game at the Pavilion, each starred as a player at the school they will oppose in the intra-city showdown.
McMahon, a 1983 Loyola graduate, ranks among career leaders in Rambler scoring and assists. She served as assistant coach at Loyola and was inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame. Strange graduated from UIC in 1996 and ranks among the UIC top 20 in career scoring, rebounding, blocked shots and free throws attempted. She was promoted from assistant to interim head coach last month.