Sara Echelberry

Omaha women’s basketball was always about potential under Brittany Lange, and still is

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Chance Lindley apparently just didn’t show up to work one day.

He left college coaching and just moved away or something with little to no notice.  I think I saw somewhere a while back that he actually moved to Wichita and ran a bakery, for some reason. It’s also possible this life isn’t real and we’re in a simulation and there was just a glitch in Lindley and he was written out of the coding in this matrix.  I don’t know, I’m not into conspiracies, but it sounds like it could hold up.

Lindley spent just two seasons as the head coach at Omaha, and he was actually pretty successful in his tenure at the school, even if you legitimately forgot who he was.  He posted a 32-23 record with stars Paige Frauendorfer and Jamie Nash on Maverick roster, as they were transitioning to division one.

In that time, he assembled a really good recruiting class with Mikaela Shaw and Madi Robson in the group.

Either way, Lindley left us and ghosted us like a match on a dating app.  His departure created an opening for 26 year old Brittany Lange to take on the opportunity as an interim coach.  Lange was taking over a roster filled with fresh faces, but also filled with potential.

Most of us think we can do our jobs better than our boss.  Hell, my direct boss is socially inept, and she has said a total of 9 words in person to me in 2 1/2 years.  Regardless, I can’t imagine coming into work one day and having her boss say: “yeah, so they just aren’t answering their phone.  You’re in their role now, and all your subordinates need to be trained.  Cool, I’ve got some golf to go play. don’t mess up” and then me actually doing the job, let alone have the local newspaper reporting on it…and at 26 years old.

I am the same age as Brittany Lange, so naturally she’s the Omaha Maverick head coach I would want to sit down and talk to the most, if ever given the opportunity to talk to any Omaha Maverick head coach.  I’d literally be made of questions around her, and they’d all be questions about being a head coach at 26 years old, in a scenario in which she didn’t even really apply the job.

I’m trying to think of all the things I was doing at 26 years old. I was working a job I didn’t really like, thinking Blue Moon was craft beer, drinking a lot beer, starting a really bad basketball blog, and watching endless amounts of videos of people online skateboarding off of things.

My friends were either starting grad school or finishing grad school, drinking craft beer, and drinking a lot of beer, working jobs for way less than they were worth, having kids, and sharing endless amounts of videos of people skateboarding off of things.

Just thinking of how different Lange’s life was from other people’s lives around her age has always fascinated me.  She was the head coach of a division one basketball team, and while you all say “I could do that,” no you can’t.  The Mavericks went 12-16 in her first season as head coach, a team made up of just one senior, 5 freshmen, 3 junior college transfers, and two injured wing players; Brianna Bogard who played just 4 games and Cathleen Cox who missed the entire season.

Lange had the interim taken off of her title and she was awarded the head coaching position with the Mavericks.  In her second season as head coach, the Mavericks roster consisted of mostly freshmen and sophomores, and the future appeared bright with Mikaela Shaw and the young core.

After seeing a group of players leave after her second year, Lange brought in arguably her best recruiting class into the 2015-2016 season.  The class included sisters Michaela and Moriah Dapprich, sisters transferring from Wichita State, as well as Texas Tech transfer center Courtney Vaccher.  Freshmen players like: Kalen Phillips, who was a 4 star athlete on ESPN, Sara Echelberry, a 6’2″ versatile forward who appeared to have the skills to play all three front court positions, Amber Vidal, a streaky floor general point guard, center Caroline Hogue who averaged 3 blocks a game as a freshman at UNO, the sharpshooting Ellie Brecht, and local center Jay Bridgeman.

In 2015-2016, the Mavericks finished 15-15, and made it to the second round of the Summit League tournament.  The future never appeared brighter for the Maverick women.  As fans, we saw the potential in the freshman and knew we were going to be adding Vaccher and the Dapprich sisters to this roster. I haven’t even mentioned Remy Davenport, who was fantastic with the Mavericks.

We thought the only problem the team might have would be having maybe too much talent and the coaching staff figuring out how to divide up all the minutes.  In our minds, we really thought we were going to have a three deep rotation at center with Vaccher, Hogue, Bridgeman, and maybe even Echelberry.  The 2015-2016 team also had 6’3″ rim protector Vanessa Barajas as a back up center.

In March 2016, I was convinced the Mavericks would win the Summit League tournament a year later.  The team even picked up Jess Walter, a transfer from Indiana, who would sit out the year, but it felt like another ingredient for the future after the expected greatness.

Over the Summer, Hogue and Barajas both left the program and the Mavericks lost their rim protection.  The Mavericks still had their most talented roster since transitioning to division one, but it wasn’t enough as the team finished below expectations for a 5th place finish in the Summit League.  2016-2017 was the only season Lange would finish with a winning record.

Make any excuse you want for Lange, but through injuries and early departures, Lange was constantly left struggling with trying to figure out how to get her teams to gel. Having to change the team’s starting lineup game-after-game, players appeared to struggle with their constantly changing roles.

Lange would consistently recruit solid recruiting classes, but each class consistently brought players transferring out of the program.  With all the potential in her recruiting classes, Lange only had 3 players play 4 years in her program: Mikaela Shaw, Taijhe Kelly, and Kalen Phillips.  Yet, when you account for all of the injuries that occurred in her tenure to Jay Bridgeman, Ellie Brecht, Kalen Phillips, Cathleen Cox, and others you can understand the complications in finding the right lineups.

With the constant turnover to players and assistant coaches, the Mavericks struggled to find an identity.  With the exception of the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 seasons, the Mavericks were always looking for leadership on the court.

This last season was another example of all that turnover.  The roster was once again filled with new faces. The lineup was changed a number of times, roles were changed, the team kept coming close to wins but lost several chances late in the game, and players struggled to find consistency.

Like any other season under Lange’s tenure, fans can take note of the team’s potential.  Lange recruited wine players to the Omaha program, and year-after-year we saw the potential of where the program might be a year or two later.  As a fan, I wish we could see where the program might go with this core of talent and Brittany Lange, but year-after-year, we saw the mass exodus in the program.  Perhaps, a coaching change can take the potential Lange brought to the program and bring it some stability.  Maybe even be competitive with the likes of South Dakota and South Dakota State.

Lange leaves the program with some pieces attractive to a new coach.

Freshman Ella Ogier had perhaps statistically one of the most successful freshman seasons since Mikaela Shaw.  Sophomore center Mariah Murdie was named 2nd Team all conference, the first time a Maverick has been awarded to (1st or) 2nd Team since 2017.

The Mavericks finished 2-14 in the Summit League in Lange’s last season, but had 6 conference losses by 6 points or less.  The Mavericks will lose just one senior, and the foundation for a great team is there.

Lange took on a job no one really wanted at the time.  She will find an assistant coaching job and hopefully grow into the potential in her we all saw as fans, and I have no doubt she will be a head coach again. She will leave the Omaha program with pieces for a bright future, for the right coach.

As far as a head coaching search goes, all I’m going to say is: Connie Yori currently lives in Omaha.

The Bluejays are coming to Mavtown to face an improving Mav team

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Scheduling is incredibly difficult in college basketball, and that I guess is why the Creighton Bluejays (4-6) will be playing at the Omaha Mavericks (7-3) on Sunday in women’s basketball.  I will not be able to watch, listen, or attend this game because of a Christmas party.  I will be able to attend the UNO-Arizona State hockey game before, so I would like to point out that I will have attended more Arizona State athletic events this year than Creighton events.

Now, I assume most local casual basketball fans pay attention to women’s college basketball as much as people who love cop movies pay attention to the 2nd to 7th Police Academy films…so allow me to set a little dinner tray for you here…I say a dinner tray because there wont be much talk about Creighton (as a team).

This is probably from one of the Police Academy films. Who the heck knows.
This is probably from one of the Police Academy films. Who the heck knows.

Creighton fans, and by Creighton fans I mean the people who pretend to love the entire athletic program of Creighton University, even though they only attend fun sounding men’s basketball games and have season baseball tickets just so they can get College World Series tickets easier, will probably just assume that Creighton won this game the second it was scheduled.  They may pick up the Omaha World Herald preview of this game and see that Omaha only has one player that scores in double figures and say “oh the Jays are going to run that tiny might as well be D2 school out of the gym.  All they have to do is stop that one player, and it is over.  The Jays will also stop that player because I said so.”

I would like to think that the Jays have a couple coaches and administrators that will be using up their promotional dollars from Uber to travel to Baxter Arena so the whole team can carpool a few rides up Dodge Street for free.  The Jays come into the Baxter on a 4 game losing streak, but 3 of those 4 games were on the road and the home game was to some low major team from the state of South Dakota… This streak has also been without the returning Big East Player of the Year, Marissa Janning, who has been out with an injury.  This game will not be as easy for Creighton to win as Jays people* think.

*I decided to categorize Omahans that pretend to enjoy Creighton athletics as Creighton/Jays people instead of fans.

The crowd could get pretty big for this game.  The game is after a hockey game, so I assume there will be some hockey fans that will go hang out at Dudley’s and get in a really good mood before coming back to the Baxter to watch some basketball.  Dudley’s has a Bloody Mary bar on Sundays, right?   Some department of something at UNO sent out some free tickets for some alumni for filling out some survey to this game.  I really just wanted to say “some” a lot there, and I have no explanation as to why.  There will be Creighton people that will attend, as long as they can get through what they perceive as the harsh ghettos of Omaha to find the Baxter Arena.  An 8 pm start time on a Sunday is as odd as a collegiate hockey game on a Sunday, but several people should be done with work for the year so it might as well be a Saturday to most people.  There should be some movie goers that will be in the middle of a Star Wars hangover that may need to go straight from Aksarben Cinema to the Baxter to cure that hangover.  The Creighton-UNO women’s basketball game can be their personal pizza and Dr. Pepper.  String along a few people that still don’t understand you can buy tickets online and will get to the cinema and realize the earliest showing that is not sold out is 4 hours away…ah what the hell is going on at that arena over there?  Women’s college basketball games appear to be only taking about an hour and a half to finish now, so it is not like it is that late anyway.

I am sure there will be that Creighton group that thinks they cannot attend this game because they cannot help that UNO program build and do not want to help them pad their attendance.  Sad/Fun note:  The Mav women’s basketball team averaged the lowest attendance in all of division one last season with an average of 190 per game and a total of 2,850 on the season.  This season through 5 games, the Mav women are averaging about 615 people per game and already have a total attendance of 3,079.  That’s fine Jays people, don’t come if you don’t want to…don’t support your athletic program “on the road” when you can.  Don’t worry about padded attendance stats, you’re not the same people that bragged up one of the biggest home attendances in college volleyball after Nebraska made the CenturyLink Center their second home.

Even though the Mavs are coming off of an over time loss in a game that they led by 24 points, the Mavs are no joke.  The 3rd quarter is a little scary for them as it is the only quarter that they are being outscored by their opponents for some reason.

Again, one might look at this team and see they only have one player that is a double digit scorer and think they are just a one player team.  That is not true, but by the way, that one player is amazing.  With seven playable newcomers, I really did not have high expectations before the beginning of the year.  I thought this season was going to be like a television show in its first season that had some good characters, but was still trying to figure itself out and set up plot lines for the next season.  Mikaela Shaw was going to be the main character with everyone else getting a little screen time to develop their stories for future seasons, and they were going to set everything up for the introduction of the new character named Dapprich that will get plenty of screen time in the second season.  I just thought, if they could get through this season with a minimal amount of departures, then the next season would be something you cannot wait to binge watch on Netflix a few times.  With 7 wins already, the Mavs appear to be ahead of schedule. There is still some figuring out, but you can tell the team grows more and more every game.  That probably sounds really general, but watch the freshman on the team from game to game.  You can actually see Hogue, Vidal, and Brecht piece everything together game after game.

I thought with all the new faces and youth that Brittany Lange may have challenges again this season trying to set a lineup again.  Due to injuries and with trying to figure out what worked best last season, the Mavericks had already used 4 different starting lineups through 10 games last season.  This season, they have only used 2 different starting lineups, and that was just to start Marissa Preston over Amber Vidal.

You could tell Lange and staff were really excited about this recruiting class, and you should be able to see why.  The Mavs have a complete ensemble of characters that each bring something to the table.  First off, there is Shaw who you have just come to expect will come out with a 45 point, 18 rebound, 7 assist game at some point.  Not only does Shaw currently lead the Summit in points per game, but she is tied for 5th in the league with her own teammate, Vidal, in assists per game.  Shaw can pass out of double teams to Remy Davenport and Ellie Brecht who can each hit threes and mid range jumpers, or to Vanessa Barajas who appears more comfortable on offense and cutting to the basket for easy buckets, or to Caroline Hogue to pull off a post move down low…the Mavs appear to have more options offensively this season.

Teams cannot just go into the lane on the Mavericks either.  Barajas and Hogue are the number one and number two shot blockers in the Summit League.  I hope this develops to a rivalry between the two, trying to outdo each other for more blocks…similar to Antonio Banderas being obsessed with being “number one” in Assassins**.  The two of them combine for 4.4 blocks per game so far and the next closest team in the Summit averages 3.8 blocks per game.  Sara Echelberry is also starting to get a little time at the center spot and has 4 blocks in 8 games so far.  The Mavs get to add a transfer from Texas Tech to the center spot next season…and Westside graduate Jay Bridgeman…how crazy is that post player depth going to be?

**If you are unaware of what Assassins is…it is the 7 hitter hitter in the lineup of 90s Stallone movies that were all completely average in their respectful slot in the lineup…Rocky 5, Oscar, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Demolition Man, Cliffhanger, The Specialist, Judge Dredd, Assassins, Day Light, Cop Land…  This is the San Diego Padres of movie lineups.  I believe these are all films that college students watch when they are in the mood for a bad movie and to laugh that someone made these movies with the intent of making a serious movie.  I sadly have a Because You Watched Assassins list.

How crazy is the depth going to be next season if they can keep the group together?  I’ve come to just accept that at least one player will transfer or get just a job in the off season and leave team with every college basketball team every single year.  Figuring out minutes may actually be more of a challenge next season, as the team will be adding a serious scoring threat in Michaela Dapprich to play along side this cast of characters.