Shauna Green sees different sense of urgency among veterans during UD’s summer practices

This summer, the Flyers worked on building that off-court identity with the hopes it leads to even greater things on the court for a team that finished 14-5 and won the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship with a 12-1 record last season.

“I know we accomplished that,” Green said, “so I’m really, really, really happy with the progress on the court but mostly off the court and how tight the team got.”

Green talked more about that and summed up the summer in a conversation Wednesday.

Q: Did you do anything fun off the court to build that?

A: We always have family meetings once a week, and that’s with our sports psychologist. Becky Cook leads them, but we’re there if we can be there as coaches. We do a lot of team building stuff and team bonding stuff in that. We also try to do some other things, but it’s hard when (the coaches) were on the road (recruiting) for two stretches seven days at a time. So a lot of it was our team and our leaders and them just you know doing stuff, whether it’s over at the apartments or on their own being creative. We did a cooking class as a team. We had some team dinners. They knew that was a key for us, to do as much as possible off the court together. I thought our leadership did a great job with that.

Q: You have a unique situation with three sixth-year seniors on the roster: Jenna Giacone; Araion Bradshaw; and Erin Whalen. How much better can each of them get? And what what can each of them improve on now that they’ve got this extra year?

A: I think I think all of them are very, very focused on what they want out of this year, individually and more importantly as a team. It’s why they came back. They weren’t happy with with how the season ended. So I think they’re very, very driven. They’re very focused and very intentional on what needs to be accomplished. That’s just going to help the rest of the team. Then we have two other seniors, Kyla Whitehead and Amari Davidson, who who have been here and been on championship teams. They know that this is their last go-round. When you have people who are on their last go-round, there’s a different drive. There’s a different motivation. There’s a different sense of urgency. I’ve seen that. They’ve done a really good job putting that into action and helping the rest of the team.

Q: What are your impressions of the two freshmen — Shannon Wheeler and Brynn Shoup-Hill — now that you’ve had them in practice all summer?

A: Overall, I think both of them have just been great. They’ve made great strides. They are definitely better right now today than they were when they got here. In all areas, they are more comfortable. They have a better understanding. They’re better on the court. They’re better off the court. They’ve learned a lot in this five-week span here.

Brynn is a five who I want to eventually try to play at the four as well. She’s a big that can stretch it and shoot the 3 at a high clip. She’s really starting to kind of get what we’re trying to accomplish. She can shoot it and score down low. In our individual meeting yesterday, we talked about some of the differences coming in as a freshman: the physicality, the speed of the game. I think she’s learning that and just being better every single day. Her versatility is going to be something different for us in the five spot. We haven’t had that this last couple of years.

Shannon Wheeler is just a super-athletic, versatile player as well. I’ve really been impressed with her ability to play the perimeter, to play inside. She has a knack for putting the ball in the hoop, and she just runs and runs and runs and can just can go. The last player I can kind of relate her to is JaVonna (Layfield) with her speed and that athleticism and the ability to do a lot of different things.

Q: Is your non-conference schedule close to being done? What games do you know about?

A: We’ve got Duke coming to the arena. We’re going to play at Purdue. We’re going to play Illinois, Clemson and Mississippi State in tournaments. We’ll have Toledo at home again. We have a very challenging schedule. We’ve got opportunities with some really good games. We’ve got to go out and win some of them. We’ve again tried to schedule as hard as we can with the group we have coming back being a veteran team to try to position ourselves to get an at-large. That’s the name of the game for us.