The Amy Eagan Podcast

Gary D Stocker (00:01.179)
Welcome to the Amy Egan Show, where each week, Lyndenwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan joins us to talk basketball, the Ohio Valley Conference, the NCAA, academics, careers, and much, much more. Coach Egan, you've had a couple of busy days.

Amy Eagan (00:17.292)
Yeah, absolutely. It's been really, really busy, exciting, you know, with the new signing class and with the win last night. So it's definitely been exciting and good, but it's just a lot, you know, this time of year.

Gary D Stocker (00:29.819)
So the game last night, Oral Roberts came to town and it was almost a game of two halves, a turnover filled first half and then almost a turnover free second half for both teams. Talk about that.

Amy Eagan (00:41.42)
Yeah, you know, I don't I don't even know how to explain the first half. Yeah, I thought we were just like really sloppy with our passes. We weren't meeting our passes. We weren't reading the defense. Just way too many turnovers for an experienced group, especially. And so I definitely was not happy with that and we addressed that at halftime. And you know, we were fortunate enough to only have two in the second half. And I think that had to happen or we wouldn't have had an opportunity to win that game.

Gary D Stocker (01:10.383)
We've talked about Gracie Kelsey many times, but that third quarter was the Gracie Kelsey Show.

Amy Eagan (01:15.79)
Yeah, yeah, she's so good. Yeah, I mean, you know they were switching one through five last night, so we knew we had a little bit of a mismatch with her. And you know, I had a halftime. was like, I asked the girls, I said, tell me one kid on the other team that can guard Gracie Kelsey. And they're like, no one. I was like, exactly, get her the ball. And so I thought we did a much better job of looking for her on some of the switches and seeing some of that on some of the slips, which we needed to. And

Like always, mean, she just had a great game. know she's, you know, she obviously last year finished strong for us and I think she's really just taken off from that spot last year and just really owning that five position.

Gary D Stocker (01:55.899)
Very much so. And then let's go back to the Sunday matinee game at Baylor. And it was fascinating in many ways after a really tough first quarter. One of the parents was telling me last night that Lindelbund actually outscored Baylor the last three quarters. What did you learn from that game? What did it tell you about the team?

Amy Eagan (02:11.862)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. we, you know, we started a lot slower than I thought we would, you know, with being an experienced team. And we've already, you know, last year with this team played a couple of people. So I was kind of a little bit surprised with how we started a little shell shocked, I think, by their size and their athleticism.

But once we settled in and we started competing instead of just working hard, I thought a lot of things happened. And yeah, we outscored them last 32 minutes and 30 seconds of that game. We won 62 to 55. So I was really, really happy with that. I thought our second half, I thought we really took it at them and I thought they struggled to defend us. So saw a lot of really great things from that.

Gary D Stocker (02:56.603)
And it's just three games into the season, but from me watching these games, you're already at a rotation of nine, eight to nine players, right?

Amy Eagan (03:04.834)
Yeah, yeah, I think we have nine kids that can play. You some of it, you you talk about Valerie Norwood and McCarn who are freshmen. So they're kind of feeling their way through things a little bit right now. But yeah, I think we definitely have have nine kids that have the potential of playing right now. And, you know, we're to get a couple kids back off some injuries. So I'm excited to get them going and hopefully back into some kind of rotation for us and see where that lands.

You know the more competitive we can be from top to bottom the better we're going to be and so I think that's just something that Is important when you talk about a championship team is just having a lot of kids that can play and a lot of kids that compete Day in and day out and and are willing to do whatever it takes to win

Gary D Stocker (03:49.467)
Now we'll go back to the Baylor game and look ahead, you've got Drake and Iowa coming up. Those are big venue games. How do you help your team use those games to prepare for things like the OVC tournament in March?

Amy Eagan (04:00.972)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think, you know, we're going to hit a really tough stretch here at the end of at the end of the month where we're going to go to Hawaii. We're going to play three games straight. We're going to travel home. We're going to a we're going to sleep in our bed one night. We're going to get up the next morning and fly to Drake and then play at Drake the next day at 11. So technically we're going to four four games in about six days. And so it's going to be a really challenging time for us.

But also I think a really important time for us and you know we are going to approach that approach that as if it's conference tournament time slash NCAA tournament time for sure with it. So you know I think you you you look at going to Drake and they're following with their with their fans and then you go to Iowa with their following with their fans and I think I was sold out every game this year. So I think that's exciting atmospheres to play in, but I think it's also good for our kids to see that.

So if we do happen to make the NCAA tournament, you know, they've kind of been in that position.

Gary D Stocker (05:00.923)
Monday night the Kansas City Kangaroos come to St. Charles.

Amy Eagan (05:04.098)
Yeah, yeah, so you know quick turnaround we have today off besides some film and then we will definitely get back after UMKC tomorrow and they come on Monday. Had a really good game with him at their place last year was able down the stretch to find a way to win it, but a very talented team, very athletic team and they've got a couple of twin sisters on that team that are really, really good.

that are really filling it up for him. So it's going to be a tough matchup for us, a bunch of athletes that pressure. And if we handle pressure like we did against Oral Roberts, we could be in some trouble. So we've got to make sure we clean some of that up and we fix some of that because we definitely can't afford to have that many turnovers.

Gary D Stocker (05:50.351)
And then I believe it was this week was the early signing period. Talk about the young ladies joining you next year.

Amy Eagan (05:55.458)
Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited. You know, we brought in three 2026 is that I think you're just going to be unbelievable for us. And you know, I always start with the people first and they're just great people. First and foremost, their families are great people. That's always been really important to us as a program and and and on top of that, then you they're just three phenomenal players, you know, different in different ways.

But just three really skilled players that can all do a little bit of everything. But I expect them, in all conversations with them, I mean, think they can come in and challenge all three of them from the beginning. But I also think they're gonna be the future of our program once this class that's been here since freshman leave. And I feel really, really good about where we're headed in that direction as well.

Gary D Stocker (06:48.869)
So we'll call that a wrap for this episode of the Amy Egan Show, where each week, Linwood University head women's basketball coach Amy Egan joins us to talk about lots of basketball and even non-basketball related things. Coach, always a pleasure. We'll see you soon.

Amy Eagan (07:01.603)
Thanks, Gary.