The Amy Eagan Podcast

Gary D Stocker (00:01.504)
Welcome to the Amy Egan show where each week, Lindwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan joins us to talk about a lot of things, college basketball, the Ohio Valley Conference, NCAA academics, careers, and much, much more. Today we're starting off with a special guest, junior guard Ellie Brueggemann is joining us. Ellie, thanks for making time out of the first day of the spring term, right?

Ellie (00:23.482)
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me, Gary.

Gary D Stocker (00:25.564)
Always a pleasure to chat, always a pleasure to watch you play the game of basketball. Ellie, you are so smooth. But let's start off with academics. So you're now in the second semester of your junior year at Lynda Wood University. What are some of the toughest courses you'll be taking this term?

Ellie (00:40.363)
Yes, sir. I'm in a lot of exercise science classes. I am an exercise science major, as you know. And probably the toughest thing right now is I'm taking my practicum, which I have to get 150 hours this semester. So probably just fitting in those hours with my schedule, traveling all the time. But I'm really excited, though, to help me get a lot of good experience in the clinic as well and working with patients. So it'll be really helpful for me.

Gary D Stocker (01:03.244)
Good. And I know we've talked about this before, but as you sit here on January 12th, 2026, what are you thinking about post-college careers?

Ellie (01:11.053)
I'm not entirely sure exactly what I want to pursue, but I like being in a hospital setting even. I've shadowed a lot with ultrasounds and sonography and those really struck my interest. But yeah, really just like working around patients and just being able to help people. That's mainly what I would like to do.

Gary D Stocker (01:32.138)
Now is there a family history there or is this just something that caught your interest?

Ellie (01:35.546)
My mom is a nurse, so she has some ends at the hospital, so she was able to help me get around good people to shadow, so that did help a lot. Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (01:44.972)
Well, yeah, did not know that. Next time I talk with your mom, I'll have to let her know about my medical background as well. What kind of, can you tell me what kind of specialty nursing she does? What kind of nursing she does?

Ellie (01:49.835)
Yes sir, you will.

Ellie (01:54.509)
She does, she's the ECMO specialist, the ECMO pump. Yeah, that's what she does.

Gary D Stocker (01:58.004)
Okay. Yeah. Man. And at what hospital?

Ellie (02:04.397)
St. Francis in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah. It is. Yes, sir. It is.

Gary D Stocker (02:06.492)
Okay, that's a big one, right? That's a big hospital?

And let's kind of switch over a little bit. We'll stay health related a little bit, you're 21, 22 years old, whatever you are right now, you college courses, and you have basketball effectively all year long. I know there's some breaks from time to time. How do you handle taking care of your body for doing both of those, both the academic piece and the athletic piece?

Ellie (02:17.837)
21, yep.

Ellie (02:36.396)
Yeah, it's mainly just making sure I take care of my body outside of basketball because you know, being on my body all year round is definitely tough, but I'm very thankful to have coaches and an amazing athletic trainer who do actually care about us. And you know, if I'm having a rough day, I can tell Coach Egan, like I need to like take it a little light today because you know, like my body, like things are going on and they're very respectful with that and they're very helpful with us with that as well. But mainly like making sure I'm getting enough sleep on my end and eating the right things as well is what helps me the most.

Gary D Stocker (03:06.698)
And I was talking with Gracie Kelsey after the game on Saturday and she went in and I were having the same conversation. She pointed out something that was interesting. She said, Gary, I'm more sore after road games because of the bus rides. Is that something that impacts you as well?

Ellie (03:19.852)
Yeah, I would definitely say that as well. Being on the bus gets us all stiff and everything, but our strength coach is really good about having us do yoga in the hotels and stuff, which helps us get loosened out a little bit. So that does help.

Gary D Stocker (03:33.652)
And I to talk about a couple of recent games and the one on Saturday and I, you know, where I sit right there on your offensive end, that first half, everything went in for the first quarter and nothing went in for the poor kids from Little Rock. But you had the exact opposite experience when Moorhead was in St. Charles a couple of weeks ago. And then how do you, as a player, I know you have to the whole game. I know how the coaches teach. You have to fight through those things, but how do you actually think through when you recognize both that everything's going in.

Ellie (03:43.604)
Okay.

Amy Eagan (03:50.79)
Thanks.

Gary D Stocker (04:02.835)
and nothing is going in.

Ellie (04:04.83)
Yeah, it is hard mentally, but Coach Egan even tells me all the time, and my coaches always tell me to shoot when I'm hot or shoot when I get hot, or shoot when I'm hot and shoot till I get hot. just keeping that mentality of not everything's gonna go in, not everything's gonna go your way, and it's a game of runs, obviously. And just staying consistent, that's all you can do, and you don't wanna let one play affect the next, so that's what I try to think about most times.

Gary D Stocker (04:15.819)
Ha

Gary D Stocker (04:29.44)
And can you think back to essentially two years ago, you were a freshman, share with us the mental evolution from being 18 years old or 19, whatever you were then, to what you are now. Is there a different mindset that you've developed in these last two years?

Ellie (04:45.42)
Oh yeah, would definitely say just like the maturity of it as well, like that experience that I was able to get these past few years has helped tremendously. like even growing in my relationship with my coaches, like as I get closer with them, they can coach me harder and it helps me to get even better during practices. So, and just knowing that they want the best for me, even when they're really hard on us and that has helped a lot. Just I have to remind myself of that every single day because it can get tough when practices are like that.

Gary D Stocker (05:12.266)
Are you telling me that Coach Egan hollers at her players?

Ellie (05:15.18)
She honestly, she's usually not the yellers sometimes, but you know, sometimes she can, but it's just for the best.

Gary D Stocker (05:24.491)
And I want to go back a little bit because the college experience has so many parameters. We've talked about sports, we've talked about academics and courses, and your team had the chance to go to Hawaii back around Thanksgiving. And to me, that is kind of one of the benefits of college, to be able to do trips and cultural experiences like that. Talk about that.

So those listening to the podcast get a feel how that kind of helps round out that college experience.

Ellie (05:53.035)
Yeah, it was an amazing trip. First of all, definitely a trip of a lifetime. And what's even awesome, like obviously we went there to play basketball and, you know, get the job done, which we did really well when we were there. But I was very thankful. The coaches gave us some free time to do things that we enjoyed as well. Like we got to go to Pearl Harbor as a team, which was really awesome. And it was a really great learning experience as well. Like we all learned something new that day and just seeing that place. It's beautiful there, first of all.

Yeah, we got to go in like some submarines and it was just really, really cool. It's a really cool experience and atmosphere to be there with the team. Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (06:26.91)
And I know I've been on the Pearl Harbor Memorial. What was it like when you were standing on that memorial in the middle of the bay with other people?

Ellie (06:35.102)
Yeah, it was amazing, you know. Well, actually, we got to go to I think when we went there, actually, the we couldn't go out to the Bay because it was just closed, but we got to go to all the museums and like all the like I said, the submarine and everything. But even like seeing it from a distance, like we got to like take a picture with it in the background. It is just beautiful. And yeah, brings back a lot of brings a lot of emotions as well. Yeah.

Gary D Stocker (07:01.44)
Yeah, for sure. then even, you know, recognizing what those people did is, you know, even for somebody my age, many times shake my head to recognize how the, you know, we talk about bravery on occasion, doesn't even match to what those people did and then millions of others. And depending on our country over the years, it's just to think people like you and me do things that you and I will never have the chance to replicate. It's just, it's,

Ellie (07:19.132)
Absolutely, yes.

Gary D Stocker (07:31.08)
It's sobering in so many ways. Well, hey, let's wrap it up with basketball then. You got to get on the bus. I don't know, Wednesday or Thursday, whenever you're going to get on a bus and go to CIMO. And then you're going to go out, I believe you, T Martin, after that. What do know so far about those two teams?

Ellie (07:31.388)
Absolutely. Yes.

Ellie (07:40.873)
Yes,

Ellie (07:45.779)
Well, we treat it just like every other game. We're going to prepare the same way we always do and know that these are two really big games coming up for us and it's important that we keep our streak going. And I think we can, is a great opportunity for us to go and show the OVC what we can do. Staying consistent as well, you know, but yeah, there's, these are both really good teams that will help us see something that we need to work on as well. So I'm very excited.

Gary D Stocker (08:09.11)
Well, Ellie, always a pleasure to chat with you, whether it's on the podcast or when I see you on occasion at the Highland Center. I wish you continued success in both your athletic career and academic career, and I look forward to talking to you soon. All right, take care, Kitty.

Ellie (08:20.18)
Thank you, Gary. I really appreciate it.

Coach Egan joins us for the show. Coach Egan joins us for the show. Coach, always a pleasure to have you on your podcast. How are doing today?

Amy Eagan (09:37.766)
I'm doing great, always glad to be here, you know that.

Gary D Stocker (09:40.941)
And the basketball game on Saturday, let's just start with that. And it was one of those where in that first quarter in particular, we talked about this in the post game interview show, everything went in for the Ninwood and nothing went in for the poor kids from Little Rock. But to contrast that with what happened when Morehead was here, the exact opposite took place. I know we've talked about that before, but how do you deal with that as a coach, both the absolutely best quarter and maybe the absolutely worst quarter?

Amy Eagan (10:00.955)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (10:08.826)
I know. mean, you know, I think for us it's continuing to find ways to start fast, you know, for and everything that we do in every game. And I feel like we've kind of struggled with that a little bit this year. And if you look at a lot of our box scores, it's been, you know, giving up whatever 20 points in the first half, an average of 20 points in the first quarter and then second quarter holding them to 10 or under.

You know, and just having a lot of conversations with our kids about how, you know, we got to find a way to be able to do that in the first quarter. We can't come out and, you know, had to figure things out during the game because when we play good teams, you know, it's going to be really hard to come back from that. And I thought, you know, Little Rock, obviously, you know, we talk a lot about them. They're the best defensive team in the league. And, you know, when you play them, you have to have

a mentality of understanding that it could be a really ugly game because of how good they are defensively. And every day I want our kids to understand that offense shouldn't affect defense and being locked in defensive side of things and the rebounding side of things. If you do those things on an everyday basis, you put yourself in and give yourself an opportunity to win. I thought from the beginning, I thought we were really locked in defensively and

I thought that showed the first quarter and we were pretty fortunate to hit, I think, every shot in the first quarter against them, against a very good defensive team. we did a really good job of, Jordan takes care of telling the kids offensively what their looks are gonna be and how Little Rock plays defensively and those kind of things. And our kids did a really good job of game prepping against that. So we got some good easy looks starting in the first quarter.

Gary D Stocker (11:39.99)
Ha

Gary D Stocker (11:59.787)
And so for those listening to the podcast and wanting to grow up to be a coach like Amy Egan, the first two baskets on Saturday were a Gracie Kelsey driving from the free throw line to the basket. Were those scheduled or is that just something she saw and took?

Amy Eagan (12:08.144)
Cough

Amy Eagan (12:12.816)
She just saw and took it, you know, and everything we do, we tell them play basketball, like take what the defense gives you. We can't give you every scenario in every situation. And, you know, really what we try to teach them is spacing and reads and then reads off of different actions. And then we want them to go play and make plays, you know. And I think you saw a little bit in the second half, like third quarter, they started pressuring our point guards a little bit more and we're like, go buy them.

Like just go play basketball, you know? And I think that's something we really try to get these kids to do. And especially now since they know what good spacing looks like, they know good movement, they know reads, like just go play, go make plays, you know, within what we do and the structure of what we do. And sometimes we have to remind them of that, but I think this group and this, these juniors are getting, you know, getting a lot more familiar with that.

Gary D Stocker (13:07.434)
You can see that because I do watch video sometime after the games, either on ESPN or the X-clips, and I watch how the girls clearly, with intent, wander to keep that spacing.

where you want it to be. So clearly they have skills in that. And I see other teams not do that. Of course, I many teams that do that well, but it's interesting to see that. Well, coach, it's the middle of basketball season, basketball being played at every level God created. So let's talk about, and it's not just this season, you have to look ahead to seasons in the future. Talk about how you handle this time of year and identifying talent. I presume, coach, you go to high school basketball games in the region?

Amy Eagan (13:31.344)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (13:45.681)
Yeah, yeah, we're out. I mean, as much as possible. You know, I think the first thing that I really try to make sure that I'm able to do is go see our signees that we signed in November. And, you know, we signed three high school kids early, Brenna Rucker, Kate Wernley, and Savannah Stricker. And so we're fortunate Savannah's in town. So I think all of us have seen her already. And Kate was injured a little bit at beginning of year. She's back now. So I'm planning to go see her.

here in February and then Brenna is coming off an ACL tear from last year and just played in her first game back in February 9th. And so I'm going to go see her in February too. So I'm excited that I get that opportunity to go see them play. But you know, we try to catch a lot of tournaments. We try to catch a lot of high school games.

You know our 2027 class is going to be a big class for us So we've really been out on the road trying to watch some of those kids that are from the area It's a little bit harder if they're from you know different states and those kind of things but we'll really get out in the spring when you know spring first viewing period hits and see all those kids too, so We really you know this time of the year. It's it's hard because you're trying to balance. know prepping your your team and your players

But also making sure that you go show some love or or see some area talent with stuff. So Most nights were one of us is out on the road recruiting And the other ones are prepping and getting scouts ready in that so we stay really really busy this time of the year I do like January and February because I feel like we can get in a little bit more of a flow You know with with practice schedules and with days off that we need and then recruiting and those kind of things so I think that helps a little bit more but

It's a really, really busy time of the year for me and my staff.

Gary D Stocker (15:34.89)
And you mentioned one of the players you signed for next year is regional and the incarnate word girls had a big win over the week and I noticed a team out east, they handled them quite nicely late in the game. It's gotta be fascinating to watch a high school program be so consistent for so long and to now be in your backyard.

Amy Eagan (15:41.776)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (15:53.285)
Yeah, I mean we're really fortunate. mean, you know, that's where Brooke coffee comes from and you know Dan Rolfos down the over there is getting inducted into Saint Louis Sports Hall of Fame and he definitely deserves that. He's just an outstanding coach and has really built that that program not only not just into a state championship program, but a national championship program. And I think the team they beat yesterday was top five in the nation and so that was a really big win for them and.

You know, they just, something about those kids too, you know, they know how to work. They have a really good IQ. I think he does a good job of teaching them what it's like in college. And so when they come to college, they're prepped and put themselves in a position to have some success immediately. so, yeah, Savannah Stricker's coming over from there. And so she'll be our second incarnate word kid. And we're really excited about her.

Gary D Stocker (16:32.768)
Interesting.

Amy Eagan (16:49.04)
You know, we're, again, we're fortunate that we're able to go see a lot of their games.

Gary D Stocker (16:53.388)
Cool. And let's talk a little bit also about the Portal. And Lord knows it's getting a lot of press, a lot of ink, a lot of web posts. And how tough is it for, just be specific, for an FCS D1 women's basketball coach to manage the Portal?

Amy Eagan (17:00.57)
Yeah.

Amy Eagan (17:08.944)
Well, you know, we're pretty lucky that we have some help from some different companies that we pay to help us sort through some of that. And so that helps us a little bit with it. You know, I think this time of the year, know, Aaron talks to a lot of AU coaches and is proactive in asking if anybody is going into the portal, you know, that they had from AU and that kind of stuff. So we can kind of start building some lists and building some thoughts and ideas with stuff.

Gary D Stocker (17:15.05)
Okay.

Amy Eagan (17:38.215)
I kind of over signed a little bit in the fall with some high school kids. And so I'm hoping that we don't have to go extremely deep into the portal this year. We're fine with doing that, but I think we've had a lot of success with high school kids in our program. And so we're really lucky that we signed three really, really talented ones early.

And but we will have to get into the portal. And so we're really just kind of building lists right now and starting to watch some kids that we need to watch. We have an idea of what we're gonna be looking for as a staff. we'll adjust that as the season goes on if we need to. But we definitely have an idea of the kids that we're gonna be looking for in there.

Gary D Stocker (18:25.172)
And coach, this week you have to jump on the bus. I know you enjoy that. And you're headed south to Cape Girardeau and then into Tennessee for UT Martin. Talk briefly about both of those games.

Amy Eagan (18:28.58)
This

Amy Eagan (18:34.148)
Yeah, I mean, anytime you go on the road, it's a it's a tough road test, you know, and then OVC and, know, I think this is our first road trip of the year in the OVC. You know, we went over to SIUE, but that's considered almost like a home game because it's so close. But so this will be our first extended road trip. So I'm excited to see kind of how we handle it. I think it's two really, really big games for us on the road. know, CMO has in the second year of their

their with their new staff and so They're definitely very very scary and it may be I think better than what their record shows for sure was stuff and UT Martin's always tough, you know They throw a lot of stuff at you with different zones and different press and you know those kind of things and of course They have some very talented players starting with McCarn who feels like she's been there for ages upon ages

But definitely another scary team that has a lot of kids that are able to score on their team. And we just got to really make sure we're locked in this trip.

Gary D Stocker (19:37.366)
Well, coach, always a pleasure to chat, you know, try not to get too sore on those long bus rides south and then back north, I guess on Saturday afternoon sometime. And we'll look forward to seeing when you get back in St. Charles, I guess a week from Thursday and we'll talk to you then.

Amy Eagan (19:50.032)
Sounds good. Thanks, Gary.