The Amy Eagan Podcast

Gary (00:01.962)
Welcome to the Amy Egan podcast where each week Lindenwood University head women's basketball coach, Amy Egan talks women's basketball and much, much more. We'll talk about past games, future games, players on her team, the Ohio Valley Conference, the NCAA academics and much, much more. Amy, this week it was pink day on Saturday. My eyes hurt after I left the Highland gym on Saturday, a fascinating long double overtime win on Thursday.

And four regular season games left in your first D1 season at Lindawood. I want to make sure we talk about that a little bit. Uh, but I saw the, as I walked into Highland last Saturday, I saw the mobile Mercy mammogram van outside Highland. And as I teased a minute ago, there was a lot of pink on the floor and Amy, you know, insult, but you might've been the pinkest of all on the floor on, on Saturday, talk about your approach as a coach to women's issues like breast health and other things like that.

Amy Eagan (00:49.669)
I'm going to stop here.

Amy Eagan (01:00.522)
Well, I mean, you know, I think obviously being a female that it's really, really important not only to me, but to the young women and educating them as early as we can in their life about getting checked and the importance of early detection and, you know, all those kind of things that can help them if they find any issues or see or see any issues.

with it. So I think it's really important. I think it's a day that we're able to do that, but also a day that we're able to honor and sometimes remember people that have gone through breast cancer and sometimes other forms of cancer that we have had in our life. That, you know, I just think it gives us the ability to thank them and to relook at everything that the impact they had on our life.

and celebrate them, really.

Gary (01:56.926)
A couple of players I want to talk about as we go through our podcast during the season. We've talked about most of all, if not all players, and if not, we'll try and get to them all. But Kalia Sain, I know she had some court time this week. She impresses me with her quick release. Talk about Kalia's opportunities here in the next three years at Lindenwood.

Amy Eagan (02:13.796)
You know, Kalia is a freshman and she was signed here before we came, but I actually know her AU coach and had seen her play prior to coming here. She, I think Kalia, you know, and I think this is for a lot of our kids because we're so young and we tell them a lot, like she has the potential to be as good as she chooses to be. And some of the reasons I say that is, you know, she has the body, she has the athleticism.

She's a really high IQ kid. And so I think, you know, with those things as coachable as she chooses to be, as hardworking as she chooses to be, will determine how much potential she has in our program. But I definitely think she has a lot of the base things that you look at that could make for a great player.

Gary (03:03.786)
And a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Justice Odom and her growth in the first year in the program. And I think I shared some observations that I had. But I gotta be honest, when I watch Makayla Cunningham now, and when I think about her start back in November, in my mind, Amy, there's not a more advanced player than Makayla over the last four or five months.

Amy Eagan (03:24.028)
I can't tell you how many times in a game, like the other day she flew out of nowhere and got something and I'm just like, holy freaking cow. I mean, she's so explosive. I don't think she even, I think she's kind of starting to see some of the things she's capable of doing with her athleticism and her speed, but her explosiveness is probably one of the best I've seen in this league, in all honesty.

And again, another kid that I think has the ability to be as good as she wants to be. And both those kids will have conversations with them after season or really talk about like, hey, this is where this is what your summer needs to look like. This is where you need to take your game. This is what you need to work on. And they'll be involved in that process and have some say in it as well. But she definitely has the speed and athleticism to really be an excellent and brilliant player.

Gary (04:19.05)
And then during one, halftime of one of the games over the, over last week, I walked into Evans Commons, which of course is adjacent to Island. And I wasn't aware that you're going to have a brand new basketball floor to play on. Tell us about what's going on there. Yeah, more than pretty nice.

Amy Eagan (04:32.772)
Pretty nice. Yeah, I've been bragging about it a little bit on social media. I think it's always good to brag about those things, right? And to grow your program and let others know, especially with the recruiting world and so forth. So, you know, that we've been in one gym school here, it sounds like for a while. And I think it's so important for us to have the ability to get in the gym with our kids and really work on skill work.

And when you practice, you don't have a ton of time within our practice slot to do that. But if you really want to develop kids and make them the best players that they can be, you have to have somewhere in the availability to do that. And so we have just finished the floor. It has to sit for a couple of weeks. It's all painted now. It's all shiny and it looks really, really good. But we finished the floor of a practice facility for men's and women's basketball.

We're really excited. It's right next to, I mean, it's right down the hall from where we're at. So it's easy access for us and our kids. And it's just going to help so much, like I said, with just them being able to get extra shots up, which we don't really have the ability to do right now, with us being able to work with them. And I think it's a very, very good thing for our program.

Gary (05:48.366)
And so maybe sometime this summer, you can help me work on my three point jump shot in that gym.

Amy Eagan (05:53.244)
Uh, duh. Actually, you might have to help me. I'm not much of a shooter, you know that.

Gary (05:59.974)
So let's talk about the games last weekend and a 2-2 overtime win against Tennessee State exhausted me. I can only imagine about you and your players. And then a game on Saturday where I thought Tennessee Tech played really well and the Linda Wood squad couldn't buy a basket during that game on Saturday.

Amy Eagan (06:16.74)
You know, it's hard for us as a staff to do what we did on Thursday and then in our eyes play as poorly as we did on Saturday, you know, and there's so many things that could contribute to that. You know, I think first and foremost, you know, I was really I don't know if you could be so proud of a group of women with what they did on Thursday, you know, and we finished both overtimes, I think, with four freshmen on the floor.

and found a way to win it where, you know, you look at, probably even a month ago, we probably wouldn't have been able to do that with it. And so, you know, we even started the game slow. They went up 10-0 before we were able to get a basket. We just really struggled in that area, and our kids just stayed the course and just kept believing. We chipped away at it. Third quarter, I thought we made a really good run and kind of took the lead a little bit. And then, you know, we had some issues during the game, but...

I was so proud of them, of how we finished that, what we were capable of doing. And then, you know, Friday we prep and then Saturday we come out. I just didn't feel like we competed very hard Saturday. So I think, you know, those are opportunities with such a young squad to really try to figure things out and really try to grow because we just, we've got to continue to teach them. We got to continue to figure out ways to help them because it-

You know, we're trying to be a championship program here. And if you're going to be a championship program, you have to be able to win two days later after you come off the double overtime. So, again, a good opportunity for growth for us and for these kids. And if you've seen anything about these kids and how they've reacted to a lot of adversity with us this year, they have just gotten better and better. So that's exactly what I expect to come from Saturday, is that we take that, we become better, and we continue to grow.

Gary (08:14.098)
And let's talk about a kind of a difficult topic. You mentioned some issues during the Tennessee State game and we're all humans, we have emotions. How do coaches generally prefer to address those types of incidents with players? You can either address your role or how you've seen other coaches address it when players just don't keep in control.

Amy Eagan (08:32.952)
Yeah, you know, I think there's a difference between, you know, being passionate and then letting your emotions affect how you react to things, definitely. Because I think, you know, part of the game and you're seeing it a lot at the top level of women's, you know, the passion that they play with and sometimes whether that's the, you know, too small hand gesture or, you know, flexing or whatever that is. I mean, you know, in all honesty, the crowd likes to see that, right? They do. They like to see.

see women be passionate about what they're doing. But there's also the second part of that with your emotions that you have to be able to control when it's maybe not going so well for you and so forth with it. Thursday was hard because I really didn't think, we definitely didn't start it and I really didn't think justice did anything besides really stand there. I didn't think she deserved to be ejected.

I did not, I didn't think she deserved to sit out the next game. She didn't throw any punches, she simply stood there so they would leave Maya alone. And then they grabbed her arm and she kind of shoved a little bit for them to get off of her. But I definitely didn't think she deserved what she got. So, but we definitely talk about those things. We had those conversations before the year. And that there are penalties when some things like that happen and that our kids have to understand that we have to-

we have to work to control our emotions.

Gary (10:02.338)
So Amy, like we talked at the start of the podcast, four games left in the regular season. And just share how you're planning on preparing your team for those games and at potential OVC tournament slot.

Amy Eagan (10:15.48)
Yeah, I mean, it's a grind right now, you know, and, you know, trying to keep this young group such a long year, trying to keep them focused and engaged and wanting to continue to compete and get better. Uh, you know, we're searching every day for, uh, anything and everything that we need to help them out. And so, um, you know, I think there's also though, I think we, you know, I kind of said it, I think at the beginning of the year, and I probably haven't mentioned it lately, but we really do have a special group, uh,

You know, for 15 women and 12 of them new and nine of them freshmen to come together the way they've come together. And I think if you watch our bench and you watch them interact with each other, you can see how much they love each other and love to play with each other. I think it, they also realized that they don't want it to come to an end because everything changes, you know, uh, with it, you know, you lose Wally, uh, Michaela Wallace after this year and things are never, you're never having the exact same team, right? Uh, so there's some, I think, um,

Yeah, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we don't know if we want that to come because we've really enjoyed the kids and I know they've enjoyed each other and they've got some big time friendships and family on this team. So it'll be hard when it's over, but man, we're gonna try to keep this going as long as we can.

Gary (11:34.602)
last question, I'm a step away from basketball just a little bit. And I know you and all the other women's coaches at Lindelwitsch supported a career preparation webinar event last week. And there were nine professional women from around the country who shared their career stories and provided some guidance and tips on the resumes and interviews and negotiating salary and that kind of stuff. How do you view those kinds of career preparation events, opportunities for your players?

Amy Eagan (12:01.028)
me as great, great opportunities. You know, we talk about that with our, our women. Um, you know, I think, you know, our job as coaches and who we want to be as coaches is someone that makes them not only the best basketball players they can be, but, uh, prepares them for life. Right. Uh, I always tell them, and I think I said this on a podcast, you know, I want you to leave here and get a great job, make lots of money and then donate back, don't forget that part. Uh, but, uh, I, that's our.

Gary (12:26.128)
Bye.

Amy Eagan (12:30.212)
That's our number one job. And four years for most of these kids, unless they choose to maybe go overseas, but at some point basketball comes to an end in your life. And you have to be ready to get out into the real world. And so any way we can help them prepare and help them prepare, I think just like you talk about players trying to get scholarships out on the floor in basketball or any sport, it's also.

you know, trying to separate yourself from other people and jobs, right? And so anything we can do to build their resume, to get them internships, early in their career here, to get them to, I think internships are the best way to figure out if it's really a field you want to be in or not too. You know, I think it really is. And we want them to figure that out before they take a job and then say, man, I majored in this and I don't even want to do this. So.

We're just trying to help them out as early as we can in their career to really start to figure some things out. And I think that was just such a great experience for them to really get their feet wet with it, to look at even some resume type stuff right now. And they'll be here in the summer a lot. So maybe getting them, whether it is down to see some medical stuff or some experiences within what they're thinking about doing.

Gary (13:49.422)
Well, you know what, we've come to the end of this podcast episode with Lindenwood University Head Women's Basketball Coach Amy Egan. I encourage you to share the podcast link with friends, families and neighbors. And Coach Egan, let's do this again next week. We'll talk to you then.

Amy Eagan (14:03.3)
Sounds great.

Bye.