Introducing Coach Simone Edwards

My name is Simone Edwards and I am excited to be apart of the Radford Women's Basketball program. I was born in Jamaica and I attended college in the USA. This is my first season with the Highlanders after playing many years of professional basketball in Europe and the WNBA. I won a championship with the Seattle Storm and then retired in 2006 from the WNBA. I am also co-captain of the Jamaica Women's Basketball Team which will be competing in Chile next month in the Fiba Americas Championship. I am looking forward to being a part Radford's Women's Basketball Team and it's great staff. We look forward to your support throughout the season.

Back To School

It's that time of year again. School officially started yesterday here on the campus of Radford University for the 2007-2008 academic year and we are very excited! A few things have changed since I last wrote: Most importantly, we hired a new assistant coach to work with our post players. Her name is Simone Edwards and I will let her write tomorrow to introduce herself. Coach Edwards played professionally overseas and in the WNBA. We are very excited to add her to our staff and I know our post players will learn alot from her. Second, we added a 5th young lady to our 07-08 freshmen class. Taleia Moton is a 5'4" guard from Suitland High School in Fort Washington, MD. We were thrilled that Taleia wanted to join our family and we can't wait to see her on the court in a Radford uniform.
Now, back to my original thought. School started this week and it is great to finally have all of our players back on campus. Sometimes they may not believe it, but we really do miss them when they go home for the summer. Everybody came back healthy for the most part and they all seem to be very excited about what this season holds for Radford Women's Basketball. Tomorrow, we will have our first team meeting of the year, Thursday the players will get their physicals, and next Monday we will get started with preseason workouts. Oops, I said the "p" word. Preseason workouts are not anybody's favorite part of the year...not even mine! I know our girls think sometimes that I like this stuff but it's not really fun for any of us. We all can't wait until October when we can really practice or November when we start playing. Anyway, Monday is Day One of preseason and I really really really hope all of our girls make their mile times. Hopefully that will be a perfect way to start what we all think could be a very special season.

Go Lady Highs!

JRA

WNIT Invitation

Good Morning Lady Highlander Fans,

Well, I say that like it's still morning. Can you tell that it's a Monday? 11 AM is still considered morning for me on the weekends! Anyway, I wanted to let you all know that we had some great news announced last week. Our team was invited to participate in the 2007 Preseason Women's National Invitation Tournament. You've most likely heard it called the WNIT. It is an honor for the Lady Highs to be asked to play in such a prestigous tournament and we are very excited to take on this challenge. Only 16 teams are asked to play in this tournament each year and for them to consider RU for the tournament field will let you know just how much respect our players are earning for Radford throughout the country. Our first game will be against Texas Christian University (TCU) on their home court in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU is a very strong team and has been invited to play in the NCAA tournament for the past 7 straight years. You can read the official press release at: http://www.ruhighlanders.com/news/news_detail.php?news_id=1600.

On another note, the newest members of the RU Women's Hoops family will arrive on campus next week for Summer Session 2. Kendra, Kaylyn, Ciara, and Denay make up the 2007-08 freshman class and we are very excited to finally get them on campus. I hope they come down to our office after they get here so I can get them to write something to post about their first day of school! It's time for me to help Coach P with envelopes and labels now. I will write again soon!

JRA

Summer Update from RU

Greetings from Radford,
Hello. Just wanted to check in and give you guys an update on what is going on around Radford and around our office this week. We are spending this week preparing for what will be a crazy 5 or 6 weeks ahead of us. Coach Pulliam is finalizing all of our travel plans for recruiting in July and he and I have been checking and rechecking our flight itineraries and printing out directions for all of the many cities we will stop in throughout the month. Most of you know that July is THE month for recruiting. I can't even begin to estimate the number of games and players that we as a staff will watch over the entire month. It is an exciting time if you love the game of basketball because we get to watch so much talent in so many different parts of the country. We just hope that all of this effort will result in signing some great recruiting classes over the next few seasons.
We are also getting ready for camp this week. Camp begins on Sunday, June 24th and runs through Thursday, June 28th. We are very excited to get camp started to see the young kids learn about the game that we love and to see the very talented high school players showcase their skills. We always say that if we can ever get a recruit to check out our campus and meet our players and staff that they will fall in love with Radford. I hope camp gives a few of them that opportunity to experience this great place that we call home and hopefully they will decide to make it their college home in the future.
Ok, I'm off to lunch now. Maybe Coach P wants to go to McDonald's today!
JRA

It's been a while

I don't have an elaborate excuse for why I have not posted a journal entry since right before the conference tournament. Honestly, I am a sore loser and I haven't felt like writing anything about the championship game so I have just been avoiding the blog altogether. Alot has happened since we headed down to Asheville, NC to play in the Big South Tournament so I'll just try to hit the high points to catch you up. We beat Charleston Southern in the first round of the tournament and moved on to yet another matchup with Liberty in the second round. The game was tied up at 55 and we had the ball with 18 seconds to go. Kelli's shot left her hands with about 0.2 seconds left on the clock and banked in to send us to the conference championship game. That was an incredible game to be a part of. We were one win away from the big dance. The next day we played UNC-A on their home floor for the championship and left the court asking why UNCA shot 30 free throws and we only shot 8...but I promise not to make excuses. Losing in the championship was very disappointing for all of us but I think that loss may propel our team to do great things next season. Our team was so close and they won't get that close again without winning it all. After the season ended, Coach P and I went to the Final Four, I spent alot of time on the couch watching March Madness, and we all have made trips home to see our families. The president of our university invited our team and staff to a board meeting to introduce us and brag about the success we had this season and later this spring, we had our team awards banquet. I don't want to write a book here so maybe I will try to write more in the next few days. The picture is from the conference tournament banquet. Check out our highlight tape by clicking in the upper right corner. That took ALOT of work...I hope you like it.

Until Next Time,

JRA

Senior Day vs Liberty

I love it when we win! Saturday could possibly be my favorite win of all time. Our 77-54 win over Liberty gave us an 18-10 overall record, a 10-4 conference record, and the #2 seed in this week's conference tournament. Saturday was Senior Day for Shavon Earp, Sarah Stephens, Meagan Hilligas, and Tameisha Carter. These ladies were playing their last game in the Dedmon Center and their last game in front of the home crowd. They all had family and friends in town to support them and they played sooooo well. That group started the game on fire and helped us push our lead to 30 points by halftime. We were all so proud of them and so happy that we could send them out with a big time win over Liberty.
Now, while that win was a great way to end our regular season, beating Liberty doesn't matter at all when we get down to Asheville for the tournament. Nothing we've done so far this year can help us get a first round tournament win. It is all up to our girls to get it done on Thursday at 6 oclock. Our record now is 0-0 and we've got to win 3 games in 3 days to win a conference championship. Charleston Southern is up first...then when we win, we'll play the winner of the Liberty / Birmingham Southern game on Friday. We leave tonight to go down to Asheville, we practice in the morning, and we have our conference tournament banquet tomorrow night where they will announce the all conference teams, all rookie team, and defensive player of the year. The girls will all get dressed up and will probably make fun of all the other teams for the entire dinner. I hope we don't get in trouble! For now, I have to go to the staff meeting. I hate staff meetings!
JRA

When we lose, I don't like to write anything on here. I just can't think of anything positive to say, so I don't say anything at all. Wednesday night, we lost to UNC-Asheville on the road and I just haven't had the heart to write about the game. We played so hard and just happened to catch Asheville on one of their best nights. They shot unbelievably well from the floor and the 3 point line and their key players made some very clutch plays. Sometimes when you lose, it's not because you didn't play well, it's because the other team was just better than you on that given night.
We've moved on from that game and have spent the last two days preparing for our Senior Day game vs Liberty tomorrow. Sarah Stephens, Shavon Earp, Tameisha Carter, and Meagan Hilligas will play their last game in the Dedmon Center. Our team's goal is to send these ladies out on a good note. This game will decide what seed we get going into the conference tournament. When we win, we will get the #2 seed. It's not up to any other team to win or lose to help us out. We win and we decide our own fate. We win and we send our seniors out with 18 regular season wins and a 10-4 conference record. We just find a way to win to quiet all of the doubters who picked us 5th.