The Amy Eagan Podcast

Gary D Stocker (00:01.571)
Welcome back to the Amy Egan podcast where each week, Lindenwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan joins us to talk, of course, women's basketball, Ohio Valley Conference, NCAA, academics, careers, and much, much more. Before we talk to coach Egan today, senior, got that right, senior Mary McGrath is joining us in what may be her farewell podcast from Lindenwood University. Mary, thanks for making time after a long day yesterday. Thanks for making time to join us.

Mary McGrath (00:29.797)
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Gary D Stocker (00:31.987)
And Mary, you've had an interesting and somewhat unique perspective. You've spent all four years at the Lynden and Linwood program, and you went through not only a coaching change, but a move from Division II to Division I. Tell us what those experiences were like for you and kind of helped you grow to be a better basketball player and even more importantly, a better person.

Mary McGrath (00:53.263)
Yeah, obviously with the change from division two to division one, there's, that's a huge jump to make no matter what kind of school you are. we, Linda Wood did make it pretty quickly. So it was kind of like right to it, like boom, boom, boom right away. But honestly, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I think that change just taught me a lot and it taught me a lot just about hard work and staying the course even when.

It's not easy or even when you do want to quit or you don't feel like doing it, you just wake up every day, do it. And, you know, it pays off in that. And so I'm very happy with the way things played out.

Gary D Stocker (01:30.287)
And even the coaching change, it had to be tough for you because you saw a lot of what I assume were friends not come back after your second year.

Mary McGrath (01:37.145)
Yeah, I mean, that was definitely tough, but I feel like after a while, I understood it from a, you know, it's a coaching perspective and things like that. You want to have, you know, the best players possible to give your program the best chance at succeeding. And I still keep in touch with all those people. So it's, you know, that's been nice, but yes.

Gary D Stocker (01:57.049)
Yeah. OK. And so you bring the perspective of really essentially four years of experience. Talk to the listeners about where you see this program going as Mary McGrath graduates from college and moves on to her adult life.

Mary McGrath (02:15.161)
Yeah, just kind of speaking of like the near future, I'm very excited for the program just because I know my current teammates that are all current sophomores on the team. That is just one heck of a class. Like they are going to do some amazing, amazing things, especially when it gets to their senior year, especially given the fact that possibly even next year now with the NCAA possible rule change, they could qualify for that tournament, which would be

super super exciting honestly. could just picture myself like a year from now hopefully being like watching the NCAA tournament and seeing Lyndenwood in it which would be crazy but so cool. And I know that that's something that those girls are capable of because they work so hard. They're so talented.

Gary D Stocker (02:46.351)
You

Gary D Stocker (02:57.337)
Well, that's cool. quite the sophomore class for sure. And so the last regular season game before the Ohio Valley Conference tournament begins about this time next week, Tennessee Tech still in the running in the second year of the Amy Egan regime to battle for the Ohio Valley Conference Championship. What does the prep look like so far for that big game on Saturday afternoon?

Mary McGrath (03:07.941)
Mm-hmm.

Mary McGrath (03:20.101)
Yeah, so obviously the last time we played Tennessee Tech, that was our first conference game of the season. So we did win. So that's good. But I think we're a much different team than we were back then. And obviously they're probably a much different team than they were back then. But I think from my perspective, when it comes down to it, I think it's all about just playing how we know how we can play, doing all the right things, especially defensively. think defense is really going to win that game because they're such a

talented offensive team as well.

Gary D Stocker (03:51.471)
Interesting. And then let's look ahead for just the personal aspect of Miriam McGrath. You're going to graduate. Tell us about, as you sit here in late February 2025, what are you looking to do after your basketball career ends at Lindenwood and as you move back in, as you move into that post-college job, market, and career?

Mary McGrath (04:12.313)
Yeah, so currently I'm looking to possibly get a job in the field of marketing, most likely. have two degrees in marketing and finance, but I'm kind of leaning towards more of the marketing side of that. And I'm currently applying for different internships for the summer back home in the suburbs of Chicago, just different places around that area. And I'm hoping to get one of those for the summer, just to add another thing to stack on my resume.

And then in the fall, start applying for more permanent positions. Yeah. Yes.

Gary D Stocker (04:44.655)
Well, Mary, I wish the best of luck. I know you and I have done a lot together with other podcasts over the last year or so, and you've always been a joy to work with. And you know I'm always going to be a resource there for you to help you get not just the first job, but others as well. So Mary Regrath, the senior forward for the Lindemut University women's basketball team has been our guest this afternoon. Mary, best wishes for everything throughout your basketball career, your final days in basketball career, and as you move on beyond your college years.

Mary McGrath (05:11.013)
Yes, thank you so much.

Gary D Stocker (05:13.839)
And I'm just letting the recording run. So if you want to go ahead, you're not in, you know, there she is. Okay. I just, realized Mary wasn't, Mary wasn't even in the same room as you. was trying to figure out how I was to get you back.

Mary McGrath (05:19.689)
she has popped up.

Amy Eagan (05:19.704)
Amy Eagan (05:27.758)
I know, I just walked back in and I was like, oh, it's probably about time.

Gary D Stocker (05:31.567)
So Mary, you're welcome to stay, you're welcome to take off, whatever works for you.

Mary McGrath (05:34.801)
Okay, I might take off just because I'm at the library and I don't want to be like, I I felt bad. was like, okay, I'll see you guys. Thank you. Bye.

Amy Eagan (05:35.48)
Thanks, Mary.

Amy Eagan (05:42.542)
Bye.

Gary D Stocker (05:47.023)
And again, I'm going to tease you. You have such fabulous young women. just, and I know other teams do too. I know other teams have fabulous young women as well. And that's one of the reasons they're recruited. That's one reason you recruit them. It's just, I guess again, part of it's a function of age to look back and say, Hey, there's talent in the pipeline. Not a lot, maybe, but there's there's still talent in the pipeline. So I've already, I've already done the intro, so I'll just, I'm making a note when we start talking.

Amy Eagan (05:53.966)
I

Amy Eagan (06:04.716)
Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (06:15.663)
So I, I'm going to go over three games. So coach, we had, it's been three games since we last talked. Um, I'm going to, um, by the way, I saw you dancing when Ellie hit that three pointer. I don't want to do that in the podcast, but I did see you dancing. I don't know you saw that or not.

Amy Eagan (06:31.342)
Yeah, I was yelling, shoot it, shoot. I told her twice, shoot it, shoot it. She shot it, was like. I knew that was the icing on the cake.

Gary D Stocker (06:40.111)
You

Kind of a two foot jump up and down. Talk about little game, close game, pull it out in the end. Seymour just again, another methodical and it would victory. And then a tough day yesterday. Again, take it wherever you went to in that kind of stuff. On that kind of stuff. Then I'm to go ahead and jump ahead. Since we last chatted double by coach, what's that got to mean to your program in your second year to get a double by in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament?

Amy Eagan (06:44.312)
Yep. I was excited.

Amy Eagan (06:59.106)
Yeah, for sure.

Gary D Stocker (07:11.513)
Take that, course, wherever you want.

And then I've got Michaela. Again, watch the games I don't watch live. I watch taped. Michaela seems becoming an increasingly strong rebounder.

Are you okay with that leading question? Okay, all right.

Amy Eagan (07:26.324)
cutting him? yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. We're talking about that yesterday. Yeah. I mean, you just seeing it. Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (07:32.038)
really? Maybe I can be a basketball coach.

Gary D Stocker (07:37.325)
I can hear everything now.

Gary D Stocker (07:42.415)
And then I have Tennessee Tech again second year you're playing for the conference championship at the regular season conference championship What is a prep like you've had kind of a miss an off schedule week? Talk about that and then I'd like to ask you to look ahead to the OVC. you okay doing that? Or is that okay? Look ahead to the OVC tournament. What do you preparation look like and more?

Amy Eagan (07:53.614)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Eagan (07:58.434)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (08:03.522)
Yeah. Okay.

Gary D Stocker (08:04.879)
All right, we've got the recording going, so I'll just start topping. That's 807.

Gary D Stocker (08:11.695)
So Coach, always good to have you again. Long day yesterday up to McComb, Illinois and back. You know, it's been three games since we last did the podcast because of kind of the scheduling change this week. Let's step through each of those because you've had a lot of success since we last chatted. And let's just step through the game, two road games last week. we went to University of Arkansas, Little Rock, in a relatively close game, pulled one out. Talk about that.

Amy Eagan (08:30.318)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Eagan (08:36.15)
Yeah, I mean, you know, have our last four games are on the road and you're talking about Thursday, Saturday, Tuesday, and then a Saturday. And so probably the toughest stretch of our season has been, you know, these last couple of weeks. And, I think our kids have handled it really well. I mean, obviously I think, we let one get away yesterday from us at Western Illinois, but really happy with the sweep that we had on the road versus Little Rock.

and then coming back and playing extremely well at CMO on the road. I thought we had a lot of momentum going into yesterday. You know, there's a lot of things that go into, you know, when you get to this time of the year in a young group as a sophomore, you know, a lot of sophomores, you know, how are they going to handle being on the road this much at the end of the year? Your legs are already tired. You're traveling a lot. You know, where are they at mentally? They're on a 11 game win streak. mean...

Are they going to relax too much? And I kind of think in honesty, I think Western just, they wanted it more than us last night. They outplayed us. They got all 50-50 balls. have 17-0 boards and rebounding in my mind is always a mentality and an effort thing. I think they just had a better night than us last night and they deserve, they deserve that win.

Gary D Stocker (09:50.511)
And really when I looked at the stats, because you know you've got a data nerd on this side of the microphone, they were relatively even across the board with exception of rebounding. were strong. They significantly out-rebounded Linwood. And Linwood had some trouble in the second and third quarters getting the ball to fall.

Amy Eagan (10:06.636)
Yeah, yeah, we did. struggled a little bit with some scoring. But I mean, our kids know like the ball is going to go in and out, you know, sometimes it's going to go in easier than than other days. And when that happens, I mean, you know, we just got a lockdown better defensively and be better defensively. know, they just when they need to make plays, they were able to make plays. And, you know, we just weren't yesterday with stuff. So it was a rough day.

You know, I wasn't happy after the game last night and being a competitor, I'm still not happy with it. But, you know, at end of the day, you know, it's really a game that didn't matter in regards to if we can go find a way on Saturday to beat Tennessee Tech, we're still going to accomplish the same thing we would have if we would have won that game. So, so a game that, you know, I think every opportunity, whether you win or lose, you can always find opportunities to learn. think we can learn from that.

heading into this stretch of the end of the year and hopefully take some stuff that we can continue to focus on and get better at.

Gary D Stocker (11:11.107)
I want go back to that CMO game because I viewed again from the rookie amateur hour on this end of the microphone. I viewed both the CMO game and even the Western Illinois game as trap games for the very reasons you mentioned. And yet the CMO game, they're going nowhere and your team just put the hammer down and really didn't let up.

Amy Eagan (11:20.609)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (11:29.612)
Man, we were good defensively that game. We talked about some things that we needed to do to win that game and our kids did it and they executed it very, very well. And we had a lot of energy. We played really hard. You know, we were all focused. We were all there. I didn't feel like we had that from top to bottom yesterday in our program. you know, I think...

Sometimes with the young group, it's a little bit harder and it scares me a little bit because we can be really good offensively. Like your state we started, I mean, we were scoring pretty much at will yesterday, you know, at the beginning and you just, you know, when you play teams like Western that if they get hot, you know, you know, as a coach, no, you know, they're, you're in trouble. You can't keep trading baskets with them. And that's kind of what happened. You know, they got hot. They got some confidence being a trap game type thing at home senior night.

And when the ball stopped going in for us as easy as it was, it kept going in for them that easy. so again, yeah, kind of a trap game type thing at the end of the year. But again, a game that didn't really mean that much to us that we just got to continue to not lose focus to what the end result is gonna be with stuff.

Gary D Stocker (12:46.007)
And Coach, congratulations first of all for this year. Double-by in the second year of your program and the OVC. The history is what it is. A strong year this year, the 11 wins in a row. Look ahead. What is this double-by in year two help you do the rest of this year and in the coming years?

Amy Eagan (13:04.27)
I mean, you know, Gary, think people talk about, my gosh, what you've done in two years and where the girls are at within two years. I mean, these are our expectations. This is what we expect this program to be is in this position every year. am I a little bit shocked that we did it so soon? But this is where we expect to be. think when you talk about

Gary D Stocker (13:26.57)
Ha ha ha.

Amy Eagan (13:32.366)
some of the things we do and how we run our program and then the kids that we have in our program. We expect to be doing this every year with stuff and there's so many things that go into it. You gotta stay injury free and I still think last year we would have been a lot better if we wouldn't have lost Gracie Kelsey to an ACL. Those nine games or eight games that we lost by nine or less points, I think we could have won some of those. But these are our expectations and

Gary D Stocker (13:55.289)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (14:01.76)
So for us to get a double buy, we're really excited this year. I think the credit goes to the kids with everything that they've made happen. But it is where we want our program to be and where we expect our program to be year in and year out with stuff. And so for us like this year, we got to play two games to win a championship. That's huge.

If we would have made the conference tournament last year, we would have played to play four games to win a conference championship with how they set it up. you talk about a double by that's huge. You're at the end of the season, your legs are tired, you're mentally a little bit tired. And so I think it really gives that one and that two seed reward for being consistent throughout the year and really gives us an advantage in regards to a little bit extra rest. So.

You know, as I will tell our kids, man, they have put themselves in a position this year that has given them an opportunity to win a championship. And I think, you know, I'm really proud of what they've done because it's not easy to do that every day and to go on a 11 game win streak and so forth. So really proud of them. And, you know, now I think it's just time to have that mentality that we just go finish it.

Gary D Stocker (15:17.465)
Yeah, yeah. And each week I like to try and find one of the players who stood out in some point in time. And Michaela Cunningham always seems to be grabbing not just defensive boards, but offensive boards. Is she doing something different?

Amy Eagan (15:29.742)
Yeah. So, uh, it's funny because, um, at the, think it shoot around at the end of shoot around yesterday. Maybe it was before, I think it was shoot around. Yeah. She goes, they're going, they're going to add on the scout for me that I'm an old board PG, you know? Uh, and I said, well, if you keep rebounding like you have been, they are going to have to add that because you've been getting some, some great offensive rebounds. I thought last night she had a couple of really good ones again for us. So, um,

You know, we always challenge these guys to add something else, you know, add some something else to sometimes we get to the fourth quarter. I'm like, all right, pad your stats. Let's go. You know, let's let's get something, you know, pad your stats, which makes all of us better. And I'm not talking scoring. I'm talking other areas of like, boards and, know, those kinds of things, steals and tips and deflections, like those things that only make us better if you pad those stats, right?

And so I think she's really taken some pride in that. And I think it's a really great thing for not just her, but our program.

Gary D Stocker (16:31.191)
And then last regular season game of the year, Tennessee Tech long drive down to what about an hour west, hour east of Nashville. You won somewhat handily back in December. That's probably gonna be a tougher challenge this time.

Amy Eagan (16:45.452)
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's going to be a complete different game. You know, they've gotten better. We've gotten better. You know, I think it's just going to be a complete different game. They're undefeated at home. You know, I don't know what the atmosphere will be that we walk into. It'll be their senior night, you know, all those kind of things. Just play a factor with it. The fact is we have nothing to lose, right? I mean, we just need to go down there. We need to be us. We're good.

We've done a year day in and day out almost, you know, we just need to go down and be us. We need to play with confidence. We need to trust in each other. We've done all the work that we need to to put us in this position. So, you know, I'm excited. I think it's I mean, who doesn't want to be in that position, right? Like who doesn't? I mean, I think it's a challenge. That's a fun challenge that now you just get to go play, you know, and see what happens with it. But

I'm excited for our kids. We're going to leave on Friday. I'm a little worried just about travel again, but you know, I'm excited that we'll have an opportunity down there to to battle the best to see where it's going to end it, you know.

Gary D Stocker (17:53.881)
Well, let's call it a wrap with this podcast episode of the Amy Egan podcast. Coach has always a pleasure to chat with you. Nothing but best wishes for continued success. And I'll look forward to watching as many more basketball games as I can this year and in the coming years.

Amy Eagan (18:07.448)
Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it.