Intense competition expected for playing time
As many as 25 may battle to make Brock’s 15-player final roster in women’s basketball
A rookie who spent her freshman season as a redshirt in Florida and a senior entering her final year are among upwards of 25 players battling for roster spots when the Brock University women’s basketball team returns to the court.
St. Catharines native Jessica Reid, back home after attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., will study business administration at Brock. Mackenzie Robinson, from Collingwood, will be enrolled in teachers college after four years at Laurentian University in Sudbury.
Alicia Higgins of Fergus, Ont., northwest of Guelph, and Olivia Fiorucci, from Hamilton, also will be hoping to make the final cut as will Kaley DeMont of St. Catharines, Karen Kasonga of Ottawa and Maddie O’Brien of Beamsville.
With all but three players eligible to return from a Badgers team that settled for the silver medal at the U SPORTS championship, as many as 25 players could be auditioning for roster spots when training camp gets underway, hopefully in the fall.
That there will be plenty of options and talent on display is the good news for head coach Mike Rao and his coaching staff.
The bad news? Only 15 players will make the season-opening roster.
“This is the part of the game I don’t really like. We had a good year this year,” Rao said. “Maybe some people from this year won’t be there next year.”
Saying goodbye, perhaps before a contributor to past successes plays out her eligibility, is “just the nature of the game.”
“I think I have an obligation to the school and the team, and the girls coming in. I don’t think I can tell a girl, ‘You can’t try out,’ ‘No, you can’t come to our school,’ ” Rao said.
“I don’t have that kind of power, nor do I want it.”
Reid, who played her Grade 9 year at Governor Simcoe Secondary School before moving up to the Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association, isn’t fazed by the prospect of battling for court time against returning players from the reigning national silver medallists.
“Competition for playing time is going to be very intense, but I think that will just bring everybody to a higher standard. Everyone will end up working harder at practice to prove why they should be playing,” she said. “All around, that will just make this a better team.
“On every team, you have to fight for your playing time.”
Before committing to Brock, the six-foot-five Reid considered going to McMaster in Hamilton, as well as the University of Calgary after deciding she made a mistake going to Embry-Riddle, an NCAA Division 2 program. “I wanted to be able to come home, be playing in front of my grandparents. It just wasn’t the right decision,” she said. “I was very homesick.”
Though Reid didn’t play last year, she doesn’t think rust will be a problem. Her redshirt season at Embry-Riddle, she said, was time well spent.
“I practised every day, scrimmaged almost every day,” Reid said. “I really feel, when I come back, it won’t be as though I took a redshirt year. It will be that I took a year to develop.”
Rao also isn’t worried a lack of playing time over the past year will adversely affect Reid. “She’s played her whole life, so I think we’ll get her back fairly quickly,” he said.
There’s a lot to like about Reid’s game.
“I’m projecting her to be a big presence for us, like a defensive blocker,” Rao said. “I’m hoping she can add some stuff offensively maybe within the next year or two. I think she can be a big piece of our puzzle.”
Rao described the five-foot-11 Higgins as “very athletic.”
“She moves, she moves laterally really well. She gives us some foot speed, and I think it’s sorely needed,” he said. “She moves very well. She moves quickly, and she’s smart.
“For me, that translates on both ends of the court. I think we can teach her the rest,” Rao said.
Higgins, who played high school hoops at Bishop Macdonell in Guelph and with Guelph CYO at the rep level, also considered Carleton University in Ottawa and Guelph before deciding on Brock.
“I heard really good things about their business program,” she said. “Brock just seemed to be more suitable for me.
“The people there seemed really nice,” she added.
Robinson, a five-foot-nine guard who averaged 10.1 points and 7.3 rebounds in 23 games for the Laurentian Voyageurs, is “ready to go” after suffering an injury.
“You’ll hear a lot about her. She has a year of eligibility left,” Rao said.
“She wants to spend it with us, and I’m all for that.”
Like Higgins, Fiorucci has a “great sense” of the court.
“She has a lot of vision to her game. She can see well. She can spot players, players cutting, players on the perimeter,” Rao said. “She sees things that some other players don’t.
“We’re going to work on her shot. We’re going to get her better, but I think she gives us a lot of length,” he added.
Melissa Tatti is ineligible to return to the Badgers after being named Ontario University Athletics women’s basketball player of the year in her fifth — and final — season at Brock.
Sofia Croce and Jessica Morris also won’t be back.
“Competition for playing time is going to be very intense, but I think that will just bring everybody to a higher standard.”
JESSICA REID BROCK UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL RECRUIT