The Amy Eagan Podcast

Gary (00:01.666)
Welcome back to the Amy Egan podcast where each week, Linwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan joins us to talk basketball for sure, but competition, the Ohio Valley Conference, the NCAA, academics, careers, and much, much more. Coach, welcome back. How are you this afternoon?

Amy Eagan (00:18.4)
I'm great, thank you. Just, you know, Monday afternoon with our kids having finals this week and you know, we have a game coming up on Saturday, so we have a little extra time to work on some things. So pretty excited about that.

Gary (00:32.216)
So Saturday, a competitive basketball game. And I noticed as I was sitting there looking at the rosters that the Alabama team had 12 seniors. And I think there's just three seniors on your team. Does that make a difference in the course of a season, in the course of game?

Amy Eagan (00:48.256)
Yeah, I think, you know, if you would have asked me that last year with us having, you know, nine freshmen in that, I would have said yes. And I do think we're still young. I mean, we have four, four sophomores on the floor, almost always at every point of the game, you know, with it. But the fact is our sophomores have a lot of experience now. you know, having that many seniors, of course, they probably hopefully have a little bit more experience than that. But I think now, you know, I think

It's pretty equal playing field with that. But I do think like sometimes, you know, once your last go around, it makes a little bit of a difference. So I do think that it can it can play a factor in regards to some of the kids that, hey, this is my last go around. This is it where some of the younger kids are like, yeah, we still have a couple of years.

Gary (01:34.84)
Yeah. And when you think about building the team, and I know last year was unique because you were the first year at D1, how do you think about mixing ages or classes when you build a team?

Amy Eagan (01:38.195)
Yes,

Amy Eagan (01:45.334)
Yeah, you know, it used to be we used to try to balance it and it used to be, you know, you tried to balance every class, have three or four kids in every class so that, you know, every year you weren't recruiting a whole new team and so forth. And I just really think that's really changed in a lot of aspects. You know, I think now you'll see some some teams like Alabama A that replaced their whole roster from last year. Now that was a new coach as well, but a whole new roster. And it just, think, depends now on some of the coaches' philosophies with it, you know.

The fact is for us, I mean, I would love to have it balanced every single year, you but you you talking about even our sophomore class, how many kids we have in that at some point, that's going to be a big class for us to replace. And it just happened that way for us. you know, I think it's a tough question with the portal right now and with everything going on, but I think a coach's dream and every coach's dream would be to have that balanced if possible.

Gary (02:27.534)
Yeah.

Gary (02:41.58)
I never thought of that, that strong sophomore last was freshmen last year. In a couple of years, you're going to have man, what the six or seven slots, whatever, however that shakes out. So injuries, how, how are the team do in terms of injuries and health, those kinds of things.

Amy Eagan (02:43.127)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (02:47.85)
Yeah, yeah.

Amy Eagan (02:55.862)
Yeah, I think we're doing really well. got Gracie Kelsey back from her ACL. know, Gracie Warnley went down and missed a lot of the second half on Saturday, but she's going to be okay.

with stuff, just some bumps and bruises and that and just wanted to make sure that we didn't put her health at risk when she she slid in with her head. So she's going to be okay with stuff. You know, pretty much after that, I would say we're pretty healthy. mean, you know, we call Justice Grandma because she has a you know, bum knee and is getting old with her body. But other than that, I think we're pretty healthy right now. I'm pretty fortunate to be able to, you know, to be healthy.

Gary (03:26.904)
You

Gary (03:39.468)
Now, you mentioned before we started recording this afternoon that it's finals week at Lindonwood and academics is always a big part of the college experience, especially for those hundreds if not thousands of players who when they're done with their college eligibility are gonna have to get a job, gonna have to start that career. How are your girls doing in your mind with their academics for this semester so far?

Amy Eagan (04:01.782)
Yeah, you know.

I think, you know, at some point we tell the kids this is the recruiting process and remind them when they're here. But at some point, you know, basketball comes to an end in your life. Some sooner than others, some later than others, it just kind of depends on stuff. But when it does come to an end, you're going to want to be able to get a great job and make a lot of money and, you know, be able to buy a car and a house and, know, all that kind of stuff. I think that, you know, taking your academics seriously is really important. I think for our team and our kids, we have some kids that are probably

a little bit more stressed than other kids at this point in the year. Some of that can be because maybe their major is different or a harder major at Linda Wood than another major. You know we really try to get them to understand that you want to do your work early like and that's with anything even basketball right you want to do your work early get and have great habits with it so that when it comes to the finals week you're not so stressed that you have to get a certain grade on a test because you can drop

or go up type stuff. So we really try to encourage them to get on their academics early in the semester, to stay up with it as much as they can with it, and then hopefully that makes their final schedule a little bit easier.

Gary (05:16.312)
The, let's talk about first of all, preseason, the final preseason game is this Saturday. The team from University of Nebraska Omaha comes in. And as I looked at the data, similar opponents, similar records so far. What are you expecting to see this weekend?

Amy Eagan (05:29.568)
Yeah, I haven't watched him yet. I'll get to them tonight with stuff. I know my assistants have been on it, but it sounds like they're they're good. They've got a great post player, great PG, it sounds like. And so I think, you know, for us right now and coming off Saturday, I think we just have a lot of things ourselves that we needed to get better at, right? We were so busy in November with prepping because we had so many games that we didn't have a lot of time to get better.

And so I think we can use this week a little bit to get better at some things we need to get better at. I think Christmas break is a great time to add a few things and to work on some things. So I'm really excited about that. We'll have a little bit of extra time here. But I do think they're very good. They're a program that I think it's their coach's third year. So they're working on changing that and flipping it as well and gotten a little bit better every year. So we're gonna have to be ready. mean, nobody's gonna walk in and just hand us anything.

we're not at the point where we can just walk in and show up and win type stuff. And we'll never probably be at that point, but I think we've just got to make sure we use this week to the best of our ability.

Gary (06:41.656)
So we saw the first ever power conference football bracket revealed yesterday, 12 colleges. And it brought up the question that I want to ask you, Coach, is the last question for today. And you had Kansas University and the University of Nebraska on your schedule as preseason games this year. Both of those are power five conferences. In your mind and when the folks you talk to, D1, especially those non-power five conferences, do you believe those

Kansas is and Nebraska's and other Power Cup V conferences will continue to schedule the Lindenwood universities of the world in future years in light of the fact that that may or may not be to their best competitive advantage.

Amy Eagan (07:23.32)
Yeah, you know, I think it's changing so much. And when I say that, I almost want to say day to day, you know, with the landscape of athletics and what's happening in the athletics world. You know, I think there's a lot of talk going on now about those kinds of things. I mean, I sure hope that they keep scheduling us so that, you know, those are two money games that we get some money off of. But also I think it's, you know, I think we against Kansas, Nebraska, showed really well this year. You know, last year, if you would ask me that I would have I never

want to play another P4 again, you know? And so I think it kind of depends on the year a little bit with it, but you know, every coach has a different philosophy with scheduling, know, and some of that depends on maybe how experienced your team is, how new your team is, you know, what your goals are as you're building a program or as you're sustaining a program. So I think it's different every year.

And they have to look at nets. They have to look at all those kind of things with it. So I'm hoping that it continues, but I really don't know. I know there's a lot of talk about, you one of the great things I think that has happened here in the here in the in the fall with women's basketball and you look at so many great games on TV early, you know, you have, you know, the the the top teams playing a lot of top teams. And I think that's exciting. That keeps people excited about watching. And so

So I don't know, I think it's gonna be interesting to see what happens here in the next year with athletics and the direction that everything heads.

Gary (08:55.79)
Hey Amy, let's call that a wrap for this episode of the Amy Egan podcast. Of course, Coach Egan is the head women's basketball coach at Lindenwood University. And if you're listening to the podcast, feel free. I encourage you to share that with friends, family, neighbors, and especially the most talented women basketball players you can find. Coach, always a pleasure. We'll do it again next week.

Amy Eagan (09:15.692)
Thanks, Gary.