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Cougars will use summer foreign tour to build team chemistry

By Darnell Dickson - | Mar 25, 2023

Courtesy BYU Photo

BYU women's basketball coach Amber Whiting gives instructions to her team in a time out during a women's college basketball game against Westminster at the Marriott Center on Thursday, October 27, 2022.

Courtesy BYU Photo

22-23wBKB WCC vs San Francisco 0601

22-23wBKB WCC vs San Francisco

West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada.

BYU: 66
USF: 56

March 4, 2023

Photography by Nate Edwards/BYU

© BYU PHOTO 2020
All Rights Reserved
photo@byu.edu (801)422-7322

Nate Edwards/BYU Photo

BYU’s Lauren Gustin attacks the basket against Carroll College at the Marriott Center on Wednesday,
November 23, 2022.

Every four years, college basketball programs are allowed to take a summer tour in a foreign country, giving coaches and players a chance to grow with each other both on and off the court.

The timing for the BYU women’s basketball team and their summer abroad experience is perfect, as is the location: Italy.

First-year coach Amber Whiting is familiar with “Bel Paese,” which means “beautiful country” in Italian.

Her husband, former Cougar Trent Whiting, played ten seasons in the Italy Serie A2 league for six different teams. The Whitings will act as seasoned tour guides for next year’s BYU team when they travel there this summer.

Even after a 71-67 loss to Rice in the first round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament last week, Whiting managed a smile when asked where the Cougars would go on their tour.

“I want these guys to take a couple of week’s break to let their bodies heal because some of them have nagging injuries,” Coach Whiting said. “But then I want to get back to work in the gym. We have some freshmen that are coming in and they’re going to have to learn the system. Last summer we did almost all team practices so that we could learn about each other and the system. This summer I want to do less team and more skill so we can see the gains that way. Maybe there will be less pounding on their bodies. That’s where we’re headed now.”

The Cougars finished 16-17 this season, the program’s first losing record since 2007-08.

“This was a big building year and we got to the postseason,” Coach Whiting said. “It’s not the postseason we wanted so next year the goal is the NCAAs. I always want the goal for the next year, and the next year and the next year to be higher and better than what we have right now.”

Junior forward Lauren Gustin, who led the country in rebounding (16.6 per game) and came up just 12 boards short of setting an NCAA season record, has confirmed that she will return for her senior year.

“Coach has been great,” Gustin said. “She’s really been pushing us and teaching us to fight, to really come together and fight together. I’m excited to work this summer. We’ve already got one year down so everyone is more comfortable with each other. I feel like we can push each other even more working with our great new freshmen coming in. It’s going to be fun to get faster and stronger and get ready for the Big 12.”

Gustin, along with first-team All-WCC sophomore guard Nani Falatea, will be a solid core for Coach Whiting in 2023-24. Junior guard Kaylee Smiler, sophomore guard Arielle Mackey-Williams, sophomore forwards Emma Calvert and Rose Bubakar and freshman guard Amanda Barcello all benefited from their first playing time as starters or main contributors.

That group is going to receive a big boost from the 2023 recruiting class, which includes four players who previously won Gatorade Player of the Year honors in their respective states: Amber’s daughter Amari (Idaho), Lone Peak’s Kailey Woolston (Utah), Ali’a Matavao (Nevada) and Oregon transfer Jennah Isai (Arizona). Coach Whiting will also bring in two players with international experience in freshmen posts Marina Mata (Spain) and Jana Sallman (Egypt).

Amari Whiting, who suffered an ACL injury last summer, missed her senior season but is already enrolled at BYU and working with the team’s trainers as she makes progress on her recovery. Isai and 5-10 junior college transfer Ashala Moseberry are also enrolled and have been working out with the team since January.

“It (team chemistry) is something we’re going to build on, for sure,” Coach Whiting said. “We were so young. We had no experience at first so now those excuses or whatever you call them won’t be there next year, because we aren’t going to be young and we will have that experience. So adding those pieces that are coming in, the freshmen and the transfers, they are going to enhance what we have. We’ve already had a couple of them here so the chemistry has been building this whole time. So it’s not like we’re putting five new people on the team.

“It will be fun to see what we can do together because we’ve been very strategic about who we’ve recruited and what pieces they can bring to the table. We had five starters (at the beginning of the season) who had never played any minutes together. So now we’ve been building from that and they will bring that back with them next year.”

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