Joni Taylor might not have the pedigree, the experience, or the legacy of her predecessor at Georgia, Andy Landers, but the 36-year-old has one thing in spades as a first-time head coach that the 63-year-old Landers might have found tough to match at this point. Energy.
It’s a word both of her senior leaders Shacobia Barbee and Tiaria Griffin threw around at SEC women’s basketball media day Thursday as if they couldn’t say it enough.
“It’s never a moment (in practice) when you don’t hear her cheering us on,” Griffin said. “She always very energetic. She wants everybody else to be energetic. When someone is not saying something, she’ll make sure they’re talking. She likes to keep a positive energy throughout the whole practice. I think that’s helped us.”
She said Landers was a little more economical with his words.
“He’d tell us what to do, and we’d do it,” Griffin said. “We didn’t really talk about it.”
Taylor is more vocal than Landers in some ways, Barbee said, but not in others.
“She doesn’t yell,” Barbee said. “So that’s always a plus.”
But before the Lady Bulldogs can get overly excited about that, Taylor said she gets her players’ attention in other ways.
“When she’s gotten angry, she doesn’t yell,” Barbee said. “We just get on the baseline.”
Sprints and “suicide” runs are something Georgia has done even more during the preseason. Taylor said Thursday she’s eager to push tempo on the court this season, something she thinks the depth of Georgia’s roster and improved health should allow. Her players have seen that change reflected in their preseason practices and their conditioning over the summer.
Not only did they run their usual four sets of four “110s” on the football field in the mornings — running from one goal line through the other end zone. Afterward they would walk up the hill beside the stadium to go the track for more conditioning, or what Taylor called “gut checks.”
“After you’ve run all (the 110s), you’re completely tired, so (the idea is) we’ll see how you’d hold up in the fourth quarter,” Barbee said. “That’s when you go run on the track.”
It’s been quite literally a “gut check” for Griffin.
“I throw up every time we got to the track,” said Griffin, who then only half-kiddingly said: “I think I’m allergic to the track.”
That doesn’t mean she minds the new expectations Taylor has brought to the program. Quite the opposite. Griffin said she, Barbee and the other players have been grateful to have a new coach who spent the previous four seasons as an assistant under Landers.
“We already knew what to expect,” she said.
Georgia had only one defection during the transition — Nasheema Oliver transferred to Georgia State — and returns four starters from last season, all seniors.
Taylor is the second full-time coach in Georgia women’s basketball history. She was born the year that Landers took over the full-time coaching duties and starting building the program at Georgia.
“It’s still overwhelming,” she said Thursday. “Your head is still spinning. … The start of school puts you on a schedule, which helps. Things are starting to slow down.”
Taylor is charged with re-energizing a program that started last season 17-3 but fell apart after Barbee went down with a broken leg against Tennessee. The Lady Bulldogs lost nine of their last 11 games to finish the season 19-12 and snapped their streak of 20 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Landers announced his retirement March 16, hours before the NCAA tournament field was announced without Georgia for the first time since 1994.
“It made us realize not to take anything for granted,” Griffin said. “Last year made us realize we have to work hard every single day. We can’t take any days off, or games off. We’ve just got to work hard. I think everybody stepped up to the challenge.”
About the Author
