10C THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BASKETBALL PREVIEW
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2005
Women to watch
Jared Soares/KANSAN
Senior Crystal Kemp poses for a picture during media day. Kemp was voted preseason All-Big 12 honorable mention.
Kemp
Michael Phillips
mphillips@kansan.com
KANSAN SPORTSWRITER
MICHAEL PHILLIPS
A lot can change in four years. Just ask Crystal Kemp.
When she started playing basketball at Kansas, the team had just finished a season where it did not win a Big 12 conference game.
Two years later, she stayed as new coach Bonnie Henrickson took over the program.
Now she is one of three seniors leading this year's team, which will have the highest expectations of any in the last four years.
Last year Kemp led the team with 13.8 points per game and 8.8 rebounds per game.
This year, the senior forward hopes to perform addition by subtraction when she plays fewer minutes with more intensity. She was on the court last year for an average of 33.29 minutes per game, ninth-highest of all players in the Big 12. This year, she will be able to turn her job over at times to one of the six new players.
"I see it as a plus for us to have a little more depth out there," she said. "It's a plus to know that I can go out there and work hard and I will have somebody to keep the same momentum and give myself a breather."
Kemp, along with seniors Kaylee Brown and Erica Hallman, will be the team leaders this season, although it is a role that Kemp has been more hesitant to embrace.
"I still think Crystal, for whatever reason, shies from that a little bit," Henrickson said. "You can't ask someone to be a leader if they really don't have it in them."
Henrickson said that the younger players look to Kemp for leadership and find it in her work ethic on the court.
"I'm not going to force-feed her with it," Henrickson said. "If it's not there it's not there."
Kemp was also at a disadvantage because she could not practice with the team at the start of the school year because of an injury. Henrickson called it a "minor medical procedure" and said Kemp was already back at full strength.
The team will make a run at
the postseason this year and to do so will employ a faster style of play.
"We will play more up-tempo," Kemp said. "We have more people to come off the bench, so we can go in there and work harder the times we are out there."
Already this year Kemp has been voted preseason All-Big 12 honorable mention, and even with the new players she will take on a big role in the offense.
"I expect my minutes to be reduced, but I hope they won't be too reduced to the point where I won't feel like I'm making a contribution to the team," she said.
She said the style of practice and play changed significantly between Henrickson and former coach Marian Washington, but both coaches and the players shared one thing in common.
Now in her fourth year, Kemp has the tools and the personnel to make that happen. And that might be the biggest change of them all.
"They both have a strong desire to win." Kemp said.
Edited by Patrick Ross
Mosley
**RYAN SCHNEIDER**
rschneider@kansan.com
**RYAN STAFF WRITER**
Shaquina Mosley is scared — just don't tell the competition.
Mosley, a junior college transfer from Central Arizona College, admits she's jittery about playing Division I basketball.
"I'm very, very nervous," she said. "I just have to get past that and play my game."
Mosley's game, though, leaves no reason for fans to be nervous.
She entered the season as one of Kansas women's basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson's most highly-touted recruits. Mosley was the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's Junior College Player of the Year, last season. She led Central Arizona to the junior college national championship. Mosley tallied 18 points, 10 assists, four steals and three rebounds in the championship game.
Despite the accolades, Henrickson said Mosley still worried about living up to her player of
the year title.
"She gets concerned, 'Can I really live up to that?'" Henrickson said. "I don't need her to live up to any title. I need her to run an offense and work to be one of the best defenders we have."
At Kansas, Mosley will run an offense that averaged 58 points and 14 assists per game last season. Only Colorado averaged fewer points per game than Kansas. During her final season at Central Arizona, Mosley shot better than 60 percent from the field and averaged more than eight assists per game.
Henrickson said Mosley was able to both push the ball in transition and work in a half-court offense because of her junior college experience. She said Mosley would help an offense that experienced long scoring droughts throughout the season last year.
"She has great closing speed on people, which helps make up for a mistake she might make," Henrickson said. "You can gamble a little bit more with her, because she can still at least force a tough shot."
At Central Arizona, Mosley
scored most of her points off of defensive deflections and transition baskets. While Mosley will typically look to pass, she said she would shoot when necessary.
"My coaches tell me to shoot more, but I pass up a lot of shots and look for the open person," Mosley said. "If I have to shoot, I'll take the shot."
Henrickson was familiar with Mosley's game from recruiting one of her teammates while she was still coaching at Virginia Tech. When she became coach at Kansas last season, Henrickson realized she needed a point guard. Mosley made only one campus visit, to Kansas, and realized she wanted to be a lajhawk.
Mosley said playing her game, even at a new school, was key to a smooth transition in a new environment.
"It's a whole new ballgame, there's no pressure, but you got to have your confidence," Mosley said. "Even though it's a whole new ballgame, I still have to play up to my potential."
Edited by Jonathan Kealing
Junior Shaquina Mosley poses for a picture during media day. Mosley is a transfer from Central Arizona College.
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