Nation’s youngest starting five heating up
Teams don’t generally lose four out of five starters at the end of a season, but replacing them with four untested freshmen is especially peculiar.
Such is the case for Utah State women’s basketball, a squad that added nine newcomers in the offseason. By virtue of the influx of young talent, USU now boasts the nation’s youngest starting unit in terms of eligibility — and they’re off to a 3-3 start.
“I think as a whole our freshman class is starting to get some juice going and starting to get some confidence and having some fun out there,” said USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner.
Stuck in the unique position of building a team from the ground up in his fourth season at USU, Finkbeiner is trusting in his lone second-year starter Funda Nakkasoglu to lead by example. While the sophomore guard certainly has the talent to score in bunches — averaging 18 points per game before her 27-point showing on Friday — her inexperienced supporting cast isn’t far behind.
“I’m most proud of the freshman class, and I’m very content with Funda with her constant leadership and her constant solid play,” Finkbeiner said. “Funda’s very consistent with her game.”
Freshman guard Rachel Brewster has already established herself as the Aggies’ defensive captain early in the season while averaging over ten points per game. The Melbourne native shot 5-of-8 from the floor in the Aggies latest outing, including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. Combined with fellow freshmen Katie Toole, Victoria Price and Deja Mason, the nation’s youngest starting five produced 77 points in their last outing — 85 percent of the team’s final score.
And it could’ve been more.
“We want to get better,” Nakkasoglu said. “We want to start running more often.”
Coach Finkbeiner’s run and gun offensive philosophy has the Aggies averaging 73.4 points per game this season while shooting 42 percent from the floor. With an increased emphasis on forced turnovers and transition buckets, those numbers both have yet to reach their ceiling.
USU scored 28 points off of 22 forced turnovers Friday, including 17 steals. Defensive tenacity and easy points on the offensive end is a calling card for any team looking to be successful in the MW — for a team notching a little over 7 steals per game it appears as though coach Finkbeiner has the defense moving in the right direction.
“We worked hard on that for a day and half,” Finkbeiner said. “We even had a legit 45-minute workout today where we got after it. We’re trying to get the A-word involved in our game — aggressiveness.”
The Aggies aren’t much of a three-point shooting team, averaging just 28 percent from distance this year, but they do make a habit of getting to the foul line regularly. USU shoots an average of 15 shots from the foul stripe per game, with Nakkasoglu accounting for over half the team’s attempts through six games.
While the Aggies remain unproven against MW foes, coach Finkbeiner’s squad of freshmen aims to turn heads in January. Utah State, ranked 9th in the preseason media poll and just a vote away from being tied with Nevada for 10th, still have three weeks before conference play begins at home against SJSU.
— logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @logantj