Paur sets recruiting sights on accuracy, athleticism

This archived article was written by: Jordan Weihing

The end of a school is a time for preparation for next season’s USU Eastern women’s basketball team. Head Coach Dave Paur has been busy all month recruiting to fill his roster for next season and create a system to fit the new personnel.
This season we say goodbye to Harley Earl, Shantaya Strebel, Rachel Scoggins, Morganne Madsen, Isabela Costa, Larissa Quintana, Abby Call, Shayla Hancock and Faith Garish.
We welcome back Bryanna Adams who made second team all region, Jaimie Smith, Maddy Murphy, Caroline Ficher, Leila Hadzialijigie, Abby Bird and Krista Hamilton.
Paur hasn’t completely finished recruiting for his new roster but so far he has committed Shelby Cornforth from Carbon High School, Taylor Coffey From Syracuse High School, Shayla Kime from Highland High School, McKenzie Burrows from Freemont High School who will be playing volleyball and basketball, Anna Borges from Brazil, Barbara Coucino from Chile Junior National Team and Ashley Price who was first team all-state her senior year at Layton High School.
He is looking to run the Grinnell system again this year which consists of shooting the ball every 7-14 seconds and forcing your opposing team to play at your same level by enforcing a hard nose full-court defense. Ficher enjoyed the Grinnell system this past year. She said, “This is our first year running the Grinnell System and we did pretty well… It doesn’t matter if the ball goes in or not, coach just wants us to shoot.”
He worked on focusing his recruiting methods to seek out accurate three-point shooters and athletic post players. However Paur recognizes that recruiting is not always an exact science. He said, “recruiting at every level… is a 50-50 deal.” Paur won’t be able to fully prepare an accurate game plan until he sees all his players on the court together. “We will adapt to what we have a little better than we did before.”
Although Paur is looking to run the Grinnell system again he is looking to change a few things. “[The season] will predominantly be three-point shooting and full-court pressure but with a little bit different look on the half court defense and a few more set inbounding plays.”