TJSweens
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Marcus R. Fuller's Pioneer Press on Stollings ahead of today's game:
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- From the moment she was first recruited by college coaches as a player, Marlene Stollings dreamed of coaching at the highest level of Division I basketball.
Stollings remembers sitting in her living room in Beaver, Ohio, being more fascinated by the coaches visiting her -- like Pat Summitt and C. Vivian Stringer -- than by the programs they were pitching.
"I started modeling behavior, paying very close attention to the details and how these coaches handled themselves, whether they were coming on a home visit, sending me a letter in the mail or calling me on the phone," she said. "So I was very driven to follow that path. As soon as I finished playing, I got into coaching, and I've never looked back."
After assistant coaching stints at five Division I programs and three more seasons as a head coach at Winthrop and Virginia Commonwealth, Stollings will make her first trip to the NCAA tournament when her No. 8-seeded Gophers (23-9) take on No. 9 seed DePaul (26-7) in a first-round game at 4 p.m. Friday at Notre Dame's Joyce Center.
The first-year University of Minnesota coach has prepared for this moment for so long that the experience has been "surreal" not only for her players but for Stollings as well.
The last time the Gophers went to the Big Dance, they upset Notre Dame on this same court six years ago. Minnesota will have to advance to Sunday's second round if it wants to play the top-seeded Irish again, and Stollings is thinking big.
"We're certainly not just happy to be here," she said. "We intend to make some noise in this tournament."
AIMING HIGH
Stollings was a Big Ten coach of the year candidate because of the way she got her players to bounce back from the early-season loss of injured star Rachel Banham, the Big Ten preseason player of the year.
Besides getting back to the NCAA tournament, the Gophers were ranked in the top 25 this season for the first time in nine years and produced the most regular-season victories in 10 years.
But this is just the first step toward achieving lofty goals Stollings has for the program.
"To do that in only a matter of months speaks volumes to our staff and team," she said. "But we feel it's only the beginning. We want to go to Final Fours. We want to win national championships. So we feel this is a good first step for us."
It has been more than a decade since Minnesota's Final Four run in 2004 with Lindsay Whalen and Janel McCarville. Since then, the Gophers haven't been Big Ten contenders, let alone a team capable of doing damage in the postseason. But that could be changing.
And more fans have been jumping on board.
According to the Gophers, the average attendance for 15 home games this season was 3,688 -- up by more than 1,000 per game in 2013-14.
"Our fan support is there," Minnesota athletics director Norwood Teague said. "The more we improve and the longer she's here, it will even increase more."
Experts dismissed the Gophers as a possible NCAA tournament team when Banham was lost for the season with her knee injury during a Dec. 10 game at North Dakota. But few realized what kind of impact sophomore center Amanda Zahui B. would have on the program and the Big Ten.
Zahui B. is now the one of the brightest stars in college basketball.
"I'm not going to sit here and say we have an advantage over a 6-5 player from Stockholm, Sweden, who happens to be the best big kid in America," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said of Zahui B. "And she's not the lone ranger here. This is a good team."
Shae Kelley, a first-team All-Big Ten forward, is another reason the Gophers could advance in the NCAA tournament. The senior was brought in as a transfer by Stollings for one season with the Gophers.
But Minnesota could be even better next season with a talented recruiting class. Besides Zahui B., the backcourt of Shayne Mullaney and Carlie Wagner will join Banham, who received a medical redshirt.
"That's exciting to think about," college basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli said. "They could be really, really good next season -- one of the top teams in the Big Ten."
The foundation for success was put in place when Stollings arrived last offseason.
"It's a combination of having talent there, having a system that works with the talent and understanding how to get the most out of your players," Big Ten Network analyst Stephanie White said. "Sometimes for players a fresh start is a good thing. Sometimes a new system is good as well."
Grueling early-morning workouts on the track, and more emphasis on diet and conditioning, were early indications of the new coach's philosophies.
Zahui B. was the poster child for the transformation under Stollings. After dropping 30 pounds, she morphed into an All-American and the Big Ten player of the year.
But everyone had to buy in.
"She's really into being fit and conditioned for the season," Wagner said of Stollings. "Honestly, that's helped us so much this year. At the time, we were like, 'What is this for?' But in the long run, it's helped us so much. We're so glad that we worked so hard in the summertime. It helped us be successful this year."
The Gophers lost Banham to injury, but three other players left the team during the season. Jackie Johnson, Grace Coughlin and Rangie Bessard were reserves who decided to transfer in hope of getting more playing time.
"I feel like every team goes through adversity," Wagner said. "We went through it, but I thought we handled it well. We came back together still and molded. We kept playing the way we were supposed to play."
RISING STAR
Teague and associate AD Mike Ellis found out how special Stollings was after they hired her at VCU and then the two administrators left for Minnesota in 2012.
Stollings' thirst for new ideas became well known, whether it was about X's and O's, recruiting, conditioning or even sports psychology.
She constantly talked with Rams men's basketball coach Shaka Smart about his style of play -- and then developed her own brand she called "Fury."
"I got a call from Shaka mid-November of her first year," Ellis said. "He said, 'You guys made a great hire. She's terrific. She works. She understands. She's relentless.' That was probably the moment that I knew she was going to be great."
Now that Teague and Ellis have seen firsthand what Stollings is like at Minnesota, they continue to be impressed.
"She's someone who really knows how to run a program," Teague said. "She's very detail-oriented. She's absolutely doing a great job."
Stollings cares so much about how the Gophers are presented to fans, recruits and the community that she is always thinking of new things. She meets constantly with the Gophers' marketing staff and Beth Goetz, a deputy AD and the department's senior woman administrator.
Stollings is heavily involved with everything from what kind of music is played during home games to her team getting black uniforms to wear on the road this season.
She also ordered new warmups and shoes for the Gophers to wear in the NCAA tournament.
Now that Stollings has a chance to be a Division I head coach on the biggest stage, she's making the most of it.
"Everything from a pair of shoes we wear to how we travel, you name it," Stollings said, "we're very much set on operating on a very high level."
_____________________________
"The eternal fate of the noble and enlightened: to be brutally crushed by the armed and dumb."
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