New Wright State women’s coach happy with progress in a ‘super busy summer’

Hoffman spent the last five seasons at her alma mater, Cedarville University, where she was 106-38 with three Great Midwest Athletic Conference regular-season championships. She replaced Katrina Merriweather, a three-time Horizon League Coach of the Year who was 113-47 in five seasons at Wright State.

Hoffman talked about her experiences this summer in an interview Wednesday.

Q: How did the summer go?

A: It was exciting. It was a super busy summer. We had the players back in July and hit the ground running with them, starting with practices and seeing where they’re at and seeing what we have to work with. We had a couple practices, and then we all left for recruiting. We just asked them to shoot a lot while we were gone, stay in shape and, obviously, get in the weight room. Then we came back for a week or two in between recruiting weeks. We had them in there for about four weeks working hard, trying to build relationships with them. We did some community-service projects and just kind of filled our entire month of July. It was fun to get to know our players.

Q: What kind of a community service projects did you do?

A: We went to a ministry called ReStore. It’s through Restoration Park Church. They basically have a clothing ministry. It’s like Goodwill, but it’s completely free, where people donate clothes. I think they’re involved with like 50 different organizations. So we just helped sort clothes.

Then we also went to help restore a house in downtown Dayton that is going to be used for refugees from the Congo. We did some painting and some kitchen demolition while we were there.

Q: That sounds like a nice bonding experience. Is that is that important to you, especially as a new coach?

A: Absolutely. And I think that’s not done overnight and not done just through words. I think it’s done through actions. So we were just spending intentional time together. But the other part of community service is getting out in the community. That’s a big part of our program and our culture moving forward. That’s how you build a little momentum as well behind your your program, and hopefully, put people in the Nutter Center seats as well because they see us out in the community serving and giving of our time for a good cause.

Q: How has the recruiting gone? Is it business as usual for you, or has it been a big change moving to Division I?

A: We were out a little bit more, that’s for sure. We used more of our days and more of our resources than Division II, but it’s nice to split that up between four different staff members instead of two of us. I was out probably three or four more hotel nights than I normally am, but it wasn’t a crazy change.

Q: You just added a local player to the roster: 5-foot-7 guard Makira Webster, a Wabash Community College transfer who graduated from Fairmont? What can you say about her?

A: We’re excited about her. She’ll add some depth depth at guard. She’s a spunky little player. She can get to the hoop. She can shoot. We’re excited about what she can do at this level. I know that she was recruited out of high school to Division I.

Q: You have one other addition this summer: Edecia “Deesh” Beck, a 5-9 forward who transferred after three seasons Ohio University. What can you say about her?

A: She has some experience in the MAC, which is really good. She’ll hopefully bring some leadership to us. I know she’s just super thankful to be able to play. She thought she was potentially done with basketball. We’re excited to have her as a part of the family.

Q: When does everybody get back to school? And when do you start preseason practices?

A: They move in a week from Friday. We’ll probably start the week after classes start with organized practices. We’ll get four hours a week with them right after they get back. We’ll start pretty quickly, and they’ll obviously be in the weight room getting in shape.

Q: What do you think about your staff? You have some familiar people: assistant coaches John Leonzo, who was with you last year at Cedarville, and Patrick Bain, who spent the last three years as assistant men’s coach at Cedarville, and director of basketball operations Abby Wolford, who was also on your staff last season. The other assistant coach is Megan Leuzinger, a Xenia Christian graduate who spent the last three seasons as the head coach at Evangel University.

A: I couldn’t I couldn’t be happier with how our staff shaped up. As I went through the process and talked to a lot of different people about how to build your staff and then talked to a lot of prospects as well, I just realized I need people in here that I can trust right away. It seemed that things kind of fell into place very fast with John and with Patrick. The best part about that was we could just hit the ground running. There were no logistics. They didn’t have to move houses. They didn’t even have to move locations.

We all just got to work right away, which was super helpful. We really used June well and had a ton of visits on campus because we had our staff in place. Then we had a big hire with Megan. That was just one of those situations where it couldn’t have lined up more perfectly. She was honestly hoping for a chance to get closer to her family, which is right outside of Cincinnati. She was about six to seven hours away from them in Missouri. She was just looking for a chance. I didn’t even know that. I just reached out to her with my first phone call with my staff. We were just super lucky that the stars kind of aligned and we were able to snag Megan. And then Abby as well. She kind of came on late, but she wants to be a coach someday and she adds so much to our program. I can’t say enough about our staff and how supportive they’ve been to me as we’ve hit the ground running.