The Amy Eagan Podcast

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (00:01.635)
Welcome back to the Amy Egan podcast for February 19th, 2025, where we have Coach Egan will join us in a couple of minutes. But our special guest this afternoon is sophomore forward, Brooke Coffey from St. Charles, Missouri. Brooke, thanks for making time to join us on a cold and snowy day in Arkansas, it sounds like.

Amy Eagan (00:21.385)
Yep, of course, Gary. Thanks for having me.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (00:24.123)
Always a pleasure and let's start with academics, And show with us your major and then maybe some of the things you'd like to do with that major when your basketball career ends at Lyndon.

Amy Eagan (00:35.918)
I'm majoring in sports management right now and I'm not too sure as of what I want to do with that major yet and I really don't know what my future goals are yet. I'm still kind of just open to everything right now.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (00:48.911)
Well, good. Yeah, there will be lots of opportunities across all sorts of sports spectrums. So a great major with great opportunity for someone with your background and skills in particular. And I'm interested in your journey. And again, I'm a St. Louis guy for all of my adult life. And I know you come from a ridiculously strong high school program in incarnate work. You made a one year stop at another college and then ended up at Linwood. Share that journey with those listening to the podcast today.

Amy Eagan (01:09.216)
Yep.

Amy Eagan (01:17.142)
Well, starting with Incarnate, know, that was coming from a high school like Incarnate is just, I feel like coming into college after that high school was just, I was already so ahead of other people because we had module schedules, like our coach was already, he had already worked at a college. So it was just, I'd already kind of knew what the college experience was going to be like. So that was really nice, you know, coming from Incarnate. And then at Illinois State, it only lasted a year, but

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (01:37.391)
Interesting.

Amy Eagan (01:45.922)
I think that was a very important year for me. It kind of showed me what I would want in another college once I decided I wanted to transfer. it just showed me I was playing a new position that I am also playing now. So that also helped me for where I'm at right now, which is London Wood. And I couldn't be more happy here and just thankful that I was able to play at London Wood in my hometown.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (02:09.337)
Well, that's cool, because I know you've got quite the support group that comes to all the home games. And I assume they even travel to some of the road games. So, Brooke, here's a question I ask all of the basketball players, both men's and women's, that join me for the different podcasts that I do. Share with the listeners the best experience you've had so far as a student at Lyndenwood University.

Amy Eagan (02:33.006)
I'd probably say being able to play on ESPNU, was kind of cool. At the beginning, none of us really knew what that was, but after realizing that we were going to be live on ESPN, that was pretty cool. So I'd say that so far.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (02:45.231)
Well, good. And of course, you to have some fun with this. You're a college student, you're 20-ish years old, whatever that is. What's been the least positive experience at Lyndon Wood University as a student?

Amy Eagan (02:57.795)
probably having to walk in the cold to glasses is probably the worst.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (03:01.999)
Well, as a St. Louis girl, you're kind of used to that, though, right?

Amy Eagan (03:06.708)
Yeah, the weather goes up and down like no other here. So yeah, I am kind of used to it.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (03:10.479)
So you mentioned the ESPNU game. And again, you're part of a group of young women who in one year has brought this program considerable attention to talk to the listeners about the timeframe from the Thursday night game against Morehead State through Friday into and even after the ESPNU game against Southern Indiana on Saturday afternoon.

Amy Eagan (03:36.994)
I think the main part, or yeah, the main thing that we needed to do for the Morehead game was just to say locked in and focus on that game, even though we already knew that we were going be playing on ESPNU and playing against a team that we lost to. So we just had to focus on Thursday before we could get hyped up and excited for the Saturday game. So I think it was kind of difficult for that, which is why I think Thursday was a rough game. But after we beat Morehead and were able to

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (03:58.095)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (04:04.236)
start focusing on playing USI if everyone was locked in, like shoot around was good, practices were good. And I think, yeah, just staying focused on playing how we usually play and not focused on playing on ESPNU or having a lot of fans in the crowd. So just staying locked in was the main focus for us, I think.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (04:22.831)
And so what was Saturday morning like this past weekend? Was it different to go on the floor? Were the cameras different? Did you get a chance to meet ESPN announcers?

Amy Eagan (04:33.11)
Yeah, it was a little weird because after on Friday, I think they had already ESPN had already been in like setting up cameras and there was a lot of like crew people walking around, you know, setting up like the mics and cameras and everything like that. So that was kind of cool to see. And we were all dancing in the court, watching ourselves on the Jumbotron because they were testing the cameras and stuff like that. So, yeah, it was it was weird. And it was a bright morning on Saturday because we had to be up early because we played at 11 a.m., which is not usual for us. So, yeah.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (04:50.031)
you

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (05:01.327)
All right. And then Brooke, the last question again is kind of a fun question. And for all the podcasts I do with Coach Gurderman and Coach Egan, we have a behind the scenes section. And I'm going to do this with you today instead of Coach Egan. Tell the listeners what it's like to travel on the road to basketball games with 15 other college students during the course of a basketball season.

Amy Eagan (05:24.95)
It's fun, it's funny too. Bus rides can be, you know, if they're early in the morning we'll obviously be sleeping and, you know, watching shows but if it's after a win or something we're all dancing, you know, blaring music and stuff like that and, you know, it's just, it's a really fun time and I'm glad I can be a part of it.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (05:42.615)
Okay, well Brooke, I wish you the best. It's always a joy to watch you and your team play basketball. I'll be watching on ESPN Plus tomorrow night. I wish you the best this season and beyond. And thanks for making time to join us while you're on the road.

Amy Eagan (05:56.972)
Yep, thank you again for having me.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (05:58.765)
My pleasure. And you can just walk away and call Coach now.

Amy Eagan (06:02.316)
Okay, I'm gonna go.

Amy Eagan (06:19.309)
I'm here.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (06:20.823)
Hey, Amy, we turned the video off because it was kind of a bandwidth issue.

Amy Eagan (06:24.966)
OK. That's fine.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (06:26.159)
So here's what I have for you. Gracie Kelsey on Saturday, 19.7 rebounds in 18 minutes. I was going to give you a chance to comment on her potential, even though you've done that before. You OK with that one? OK. And then, did I have this right? was Gracie Wernley. Is she the OVC player of the week?

Amy Eagan (06:39.052)
Yep, yeah, for sure.

Amy Eagan (06:46.488)
She's the OVC newcomer of the week.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (06:49.231)
So you've really not had a player of the week, right?

Amy Eagan (06:51.426)
We have not, but we've had Brooke as the newcomer four times and Gracie as the newcomer three times. So seven times total.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (06:57.369)
So, okay, so what I was going to take that is no players of the week. And there's always somebody different stepping up to have big nights, big days for your team and just let you run with that. So even though no, you know, no Reagan, whatever name is from Western, you've got team, all, and it is, it's always somebody different. So I was going to bring that up, let you run with that. I was also going to ask about the USI game. Did you see them focusing on either Ellie or Maya?

Amy Eagan (07:09.014)
Yep, sounds good.

Amy Eagan (07:17.784)
Okay.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (07:26.201)
to try and shut them down.

Amy Eagan (07:26.446)
I mean, they weren't helping off Ellie, I know. But I didn't really notice with Maya.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (07:32.769)
All right, then I'm not okay. Okay. I'm not gonna ask that one. I just it was just kind of a question I had And then back up that previous question I'll probably do a follow-up and you've got a like a rotation of nine to ten players. Is that fair? Okay, and take you know, you don't see that very often coach. Why is that? bah bah take it where you

Amy Eagan (07:36.408)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (07:56.175)
OVC stats. So I went into the OVC stats and I did this for Kyle on Monday. And I've got some areas where Lindenwood is at top and where Lindenwood is less than the top. And on the top, Lindenwood is scoring offense, field goal percentage and three point field goal percentage, field goal percentage defense, defensive rebounding and assists. Pick one of those if you want or all those if you want. And then we're a little bit down the middle on offensive rebound and turnover margin.

Amy Eagan (08:22.979)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (08:24.911)
Are you OK with those? OK, all right. And I know the press has been an issue, but it's gotten better, I know. And then we'll go to Little Rock. You're in Little Rock for what's going to be a big game tomorrow night. Talk about Little Rock. And then you'll be in Southeast Missouri on Saturday, clearly having a building year. What do you expect? Blah, blah, blah. And then the behind the scenes question, you get off this week, because I asked Brooke.

Amy Eagan (08:26.06)
Yeah, for sure. Just laughing at turnovers.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (08:52.493)
And the behind the scenes question was, what do basketball players do on bus rides?

Amy Eagan (08:56.718)
What did she say? Sleep?

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (08:58.703)
Well, she said mostly sleep, mostly sleep and watch movies and listen to music and that kind of stuff. It wasn't profound, but it was cute.

Amy Eagan (09:06.72)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (09:09.213)
And I think that's all I've got.

So I've already done the intro, so we'll just jump right in.

Amy Eagan (09:15.649)
Okay.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (09:18.681)
Coach, always good to chat. I understand you had an exciting bus trip from St. Louis to Arkansas yesterday.

Amy Eagan (09:24.876)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we left today early, you know, because that big winter storm was kind of coming through the south southern part of Missouri and northern part of Arkansas. So we decided instead of driving in maybe on roads that were questionable today to leave early yesterday. And I think it was the right decision to make the roads down here are super ice covered and packed with snow on top of that. And you can tell not not very cleared right now. So I think we definitely made a good decision.

with it, got down here, ate dinner together last night and then this morning we had practice and film and that kind of stuff. So we're going to take them to maybe the mall to walk around a little bit and get out together and spend some time together with it. And again, I think it's, you know, sometimes it makes for a long road trip, but I think it was the right decision for us.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (10:12.533)
Yeah. Okay. Safety, of course, is always important. Coach, let's talk basketball. And I want to start with, again, we all tease all the time that there's a rookie on this end of the microphone. indeed I am. Gracie, Gracie Kelty on Saturday. 19 points, seven rebounds, 18 minutes. Boy, what are those numbers going to look like if she ever plays 35 or 40?

Amy Eagan (10:24.663)
haha

Amy Eagan (10:34.894)
Yeah, mean, you you I think everyone probably knows how I feel about Gracie Kelsey and how good I feel like she is. And, you know, last year I thought we played that first game with her with Southern Indiana and then we lost on a last second shot, if you remember, our last second foul that we had. And so I had a potential to knock them out early, but weren't able to make that last play with it. And then she tore her ACL right after that. And so.

you know, missing her last year was huge for us. You know, when you talk about depth in that five position and, you know, once Justice was in foul trouble, we had to go to a four player that was about six foot and weighed about a hundred pounds. So we really struggled with some depth in that five position last year and, and she definitely would have filled a lot of that. And I think, you know, even last year could have been a little bit different with, with her if she went into OECL.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (11:16.706)
You

Amy Eagan (11:30.05)
with stuff so we're lucky to have her back. We're glad to have her back. I think she's getting more and more comfortable. You can even see in practice with like understanding offensively what she's supposed to do, where she's supposed to be and just feeling better, you know about herself being more comfortable with her ACL brace and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I just you know, I think if we can get that out of her every night, you know, the sky's the limit for the kid and she's had some really good practices.

these last few days as well. excited about what she's going to bring to us and continue to bring to us and where she can take her game.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (12:03.371)
I even listened to the, you had her in the post-game interview room after the USI game, and she talked about the maturity that the seniors offered. But boy, I tell you what, Coach, she expressed, she just showed maturity by the way she spoke in that environment.

Amy Eagan (12:09.027)
Nah.

Amy Eagan (12:18.05)
Yeah, yeah, she did, didn't she? She said a lot of great things and spoke really great, I thought, in that interview. And she just gets it. She understands the game. She understands what's important in the game and the teammates that we need to be. And she just gets it. So really proud of her. mean, she does some amazing things off the floor as well. And so she's just a phenomenal young woman.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (12:48.153)
And let's talk kind of the epitome of the definition of a team. And I'm going to use this in the context of the OVC player of the week. Now I understand, I know that Linwood has had three or four or five, six instances of players being the new player of the week, but no OVC player of the week. And so far into the season now, coach, that this is clearly a team where every game it seems somebody else, one or two people are stepping up differently. You don't always see that, coach.

Amy Eagan (13:16.172)
Yeah, yeah, you don't. I think that's something that's really special about this team is, I think we have a lot of kids that can do a lot of different things on any given night based on some matchups and strengths and weaknesses of the opponent and strengths and weaknesses of ourselves. So I think that's pretty cool. But I think the most important thing when you say all that, Gary, is we don't have kids that worry about stats. We just have kids that worry about winning.

And I think, you know, it's sometimes hard to find and we just have that team. have, you know, I put up yesterday on Twitter and Instagram, they put a video together and, you know, I do a lot of obviously thinking outside of this, but it's just, this team's just uncommon, you know, and that's how I kind of labeled it as uncommon because they are like, they just, they care about winning and that's about it. They care about how they do it with each other, what it looks like, how much they love each other, how they work.

But they do not care about stats and they do not care about player of the week. They do not care about newcomer of the week, even though we've won that a few times. They just don't, they just wanna win. so I think sometimes when you have teams like that, again, just you as a coach, just smile and enjoy it because it doesn't happen every single year.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (14:30.223)
And you know, this time of year again, you can watch across all divisions of basketball in college and coaches tend to shorten their bench as the season gets longer. And coach, Saturday you had I nine or 10 players playing and if that's almost the case every single game, that's pretty unique also.

Amy Eagan (14:48.588)
Yeah, we have a deep bench. I really feel like that. We have kids that you talk about, kids that show up every day in practice. But we talk a lot about what that looks like. If you want to play, if you want coaches to trust you and to have trust in you when you go in games, then you have to do that consistently in practice. And I think it helps that we have Mary and Mariah and.

justice that understand those things that lead the way with stuff and they talk about it, you know, with the kids. And so I think that really helps. But yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable going deep in the bench. You know, if everyone shows up the way they showed up on point the other night, heck, we could play that deep every single night. Some nights we struggle a little bit with foul trouble. Some nights we struggle a little bit with some kids maybe not quite quite having the best game, but we're very lucky and fortunate. You know, one of the things that that has done for us

is that we don't have anyone on our team that is in the top 15 of minutes played. Yeah, so when you talk about end of the year and you talk about, you know, saving your body, saving your legs, I feel like we have those things, you know. We're not worn down. You know, we're pretty fresh every game because we don't have kids that are, you know, able to, that we're just running into the ground. You know, the other thing I think that helps with is Saturday games.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (15:50.691)
Huh. Interesting.

Amy Eagan (16:13.518)
If you're able to play a little bit deeper on Friday, then you have a few more legs on Saturday against some teams in our league that are playing three or four people over 35 minutes a game. So I also think that's been a strength of ours when it comes to some Saturday games, some Saturday wins. So again, just I think something that when you look at the overall picture of stuff is very, very beneficial.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (16:36.813)
And you mentioned stats a minute ago and you know you've got a data nerd again on the other side of the microphone here. And so I pulled up the OVC stats to date for this year and Linda Wood is strong in a couple. Let me read where they are. And I've got a couple of them not so strong, but Linda Wood is in the top, one of the top teams in the OVC in scoring offense, in field goal percentage and in three point field goal percentage, in field goal defense, defensive rebounding and assists. Talk about some of those.

Amy Eagan (16:50.616)
Okay.

Amy Eagan (17:05.686)
Yeah, I mean, you know, I would like a lot more defensive stats if you could read the read those in the top category. No, I think I think, you know, we I think when you watch us offensively, you see a lot of the great things we do. And, you know, when you talk about sharing the ball and that and, you know, I probably look at those stats once a week as well, just to see kind of where we sit with some of our matchups and those kind of things with it. But

Yeah, I think we got a lot of great things going on in regards to some of those team stats. And one of the craziest stats to me is that we're kind of middle of the pack, I think, with turnovers in regards to we have too many turnovers. We need to continue to limit those. But at the same time,

one of the things that we're really good at is assist to turnover ratio. I think we're number one to assist to turnover ratio. So I think that's pretty cool to see that and see that stat. But I think rebounding has definitely gotten better from last year. And sometimes I look at it in regards to that. were we last year? Where are we this year? What do we got to continue to get better at?

I think rebounding has gotten better, I think we still got to get better at that. We got to get more consistent, get more rebounders in there. just something maybe we'll address when it comes to the end of the year with it. Some of those categories that we're struggling with, and we'll probably try to get something better or fill some gaps with the portal and that kind of stuff.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (18:40.367)
You you talk about defense and Marquette University, the men's team and Chaka Smart up there. I've been to a couple of their games. actually count on the scoreboard deflections at their games. I, you know, I watched your young women play all year long and they have hands reaching in and doing deflections and interrupting dribbles all the time.

Amy Eagan (18:49.165)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (19:01.954)
Yeah, we're getting a lot more active. know, the last few weeks I've kind of really talked about when we're doing like scouts, like tips, deflections, you know, reading things, kind of things. And we've started a few of those things. Probably the number one thing we stat is kills. And we try to get so many kills a game. And what a kill is, is three stops in a row.

And so, if you ever hear our kids when they're on the bench during a game or anything say that's one kill, that's one kill. You know, I think it's pretty cool to hear that. And then we talk about the next day after the game, how many kills we got. And I think, you know, it's been shown like if you get eight or more kills a game, you have like a 95 % chance of winning. So, and I think, you you look at Southern Indiana, we had seven kills.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (19:33.292)
cool

Amy Eagan (19:52.142)
So it's pretty cool to see that. And I think it just helps them keep stay focused on, you know, what wins championships. And we believe that's defense first and just gives them some goals to strive towards as a team.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (20:06.297)
So coach, four games left, all four games on the road, course. A tough one at Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow, and then a rebuilding year at SEMO on Saturday. What are you looking for for those next two games?

Amy Eagan (20:08.034)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Eagan (20:17.134)
Yeah, tomorrow will be tough. mean, you're on the road first and then you're playing a Little Rock team that's super athletic, has some kids that can really fill it up. So it has some post play. they're very good. So I mean, we're going to have to be on point. They're one of the better defensive teams in the league as well. So we're going have to be on point offensively and defensively. And we're going to have to be ready to compete because they're going to compete really, really hard.

And so it's going to be a good matchup for us. then on Saturday, Friday, we'll head to CMO to Cape Girardeau and play down there on Saturday for a 1.30 PM game. a team that, when you talk about a team that has a new coach and is building throughout the year, I mean, you look at some of their games and I know our last game with them was fairly close. So definitely not a team we can overlook by any means with stuff.

They just got one of their prime time players back from an injury that they didn't have the first time we played them. So a team that's very, very dangerous and dangerous this time of the year, you know, when really you have nothing to lose with stuff. So I think, you know, this is a big week for us and I know our kids know that, but I think they're really confident in what we're doing. And I think that's a really great thing. You can see it in practice.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (21:34.191)
Okay, well coach, it's snowy, cold and icy in Arkansas. you know, make sure you don't do any kind of unintended slipping and sliding when you're out and about today.

Amy Eagan (21:37.038)
you

Amy Eagan (21:44.074)
I know there's a sheet of ice everywhere here. So we're being careful and consistently reminding the kids most importantly.

Amy Eagan Show For 021925 (21:50.489)
That's right. And we'll look forward to watching the games this weekend and look forward to seeing you back in St. Charles sometime soon. Take care, coach.

Amy Eagan (21:56.514)
Thanks, Gary.