Breaking down WSU women at California

Five-strong

Wichita State has had its best season behind its starting five of Alex Harden, Jamillah Bonner, Michaela Dapprich, Kelsey Jacobs, and Alie Decker.

Those five players all average at least 31 minutes and played 86 percent of the possible minutes in St. Charles, Mo., when the Shockers won three games in three days to capture their third straight Missouri Valley tournament championship.

How has coach Jody Adams preserved a unit that is so heavily relied upon?

“We do a lot of mental training,” Jacobs said. “Instead of going through those really hard reps in practice, now we watch film and talk with the coaches and put our minds through it instead.”

While Jaleesa Chapel and Brittany Martin have carved out productive roles as reserve players, Adams said the potential of the starting five this season was just too good to not play major minutes.

“They know each other like the back of their hands,” Adams said. “The trust between them is really hard to explain as a coach. I can’t say enough about how tough these guys are, their resilience, their perseverance. They’re just a group of tough kids.”

No comment. Well …

After winning 20 of 21 games in the Missouri Valley Conference and successfully navigating a beefed-up non-conference schedule, Wichita State felt a little slighted when it was announced as a No. 13 seed.

It begs the question if this — a No. 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament — is close to the ceiling for the program. When asked if the selection committee’s decision this season would impact her future outlook on scheduling, Adams initially declined comment … but couldn’t help herself.

“We’re asked to schedule like, and I hate to use the word ‘mid-major’ because I hate the word middle,” Adams said. “We’re not middle. We’re not average. But you do what you’re asked to do. You win big ballgames and that’s all we can do. Where someone seeds us and places us is out of our control. We’re excited to be here and excited to play Cal.”

History in the making

Harden, Jacobs, and Adams all fielded questions about what it was like being part of a team making history in the moment.

All said it was too difficult to put their accomplishments in the proper perspective before the season ends.

“We’re still trying to do something we’ve never done before and that’s to get a win here,” Harden said.

Jacobs mentioned how the experience of past NCAA Tournaments helped the veterans on this team.

“When it was the first time ever, there were a lot of distractions around us,” Jacobs said. “Now we’re we’re an older group and we know what to expect. We have high expectations for ourselves and we’re focused and we know what to do.”

Win or lose on Friday, Wichita State will still be making history. This team has rewritten the record book in the program.

But that one glaring omission — a NCAA Tournament victory — is what keeps this group motivated.

“This will all be history at some point and this will all be tradition,” Adams said. “It started with a vision and a dream and then all the hard work that’s put into it. To see it all come together like this is a beautiful thing to me.”

Taylor Eldridge

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 8:49 PM with the headline "Breaking down WSU women at California."