Just two years ago, Bradley women’s basketball made the NCAA Tournament riding the hot hand of the program’s leading scorer, Gabi Haack. One year later, they became the bottom-dwellers in the conference, with that hot hand succumbing to injury and six-year head coach Andrea Gorski retiring at the end of the season.
All of this means it’s a new era on the Hilltop, and first-time head coach Kate Popovec-Goss is ready to take on that challenge.
“It’s about the process, that’s what we’ve emphasized,” Popovec-Goss said. “We’re really young, we’re gonna make mistakes, we’re gonna make young mistakes. I tell them all the time [that] I’m going to make mistakes. All we can do is prepare and control the controllables and learn how to win.”
After a 4-24 record and just one win in Valley play a year ago, the Braves return eight players and one starter from that 10th place team. The departure of Haack as well as Tatum Koenig, Sierra Morrow, Abbie Draper and Chloe Rice – who combined for nearly 50% of the team’s points – left Bradley with a skeleton of a basketball team. Luckily for them, that lone returning starter happens to be MVC Freshman of the Year Caroline Waite.
Averaging 13 points and nearly three 3-pointers per game, Waite was a bright spot in an otherwise dreary Braves season. The sophomore was the top-scoring underclassman in the conference and her mark of 72 threes was the fifth-best single season total in Braves history. She may be losing her supporting cast, but she thinks the change is a welcome one.
“It’s a new atmosphere,” Waite said. “We’ve built a lot of new chemistry and it’s just a lot of new parts for our team that I think will make us very successful this year.”
Junior Tete Danso, one of three current players to play on that 2021 championship team, also has high hopes for the new blood.
“They’re gonna contribute perfectly,” Danso said. “They’re all super hardworking, very coachable. That’s a lot of [the] difference between last year’s players and this year’s players.”
The chemistry may be there in practice, but time will tell if it can translate to game situations. Popovec-Goss knows this all too well and is aware that not everyone is going to gel right away.
“It’s gonna take time,” Popovec-Goss said. “It’s something that we’re working on, we’re still continuing to work our lineups and find out who plays well together, specifically on both ends of the court because our defense is a [tough] matchup as well.”
Headlining this year’s crop of newcomers is sophomore guard Alex Rouse and junior guard Ruba Abo Hashesh. The Braves lost a lot of depth at the guard position and only inherited three returners from a season ago, so these two will be important pieces for Popovec-Goss’s system.
“I’m really excited about our core group of guards,” Popovec-Goss said. “Everyone knows about Caroline, but I think that Ruba and Alex have really stepped up to the plate in terms of the roles I’ve asked them to play.”
Rouse comes to Bradley from Old Dominion, where she only appeared in eight games on a team that made the WNIT last season. On the other hand, Abo Hashesh hails from Sweden and spent the last two seasons at Iowa Western Community College where she was a Second-Team All-Region XI pick and earned NJCAA Region XI All-Tournament honors. She averaged 7.5 points and four rebounds a game.
The Braves have time to get things ironed out before conference play, although they have three tough matchups to start the season with Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin on the docket. This is evident to Popovec-Goss, who wants to make sure her team is prepared for a full season of hoops.
“[We] don’t want to be playing [our] best basketball in November, we should be playing our best basketball in February,” Popovec-Goss said. “It’s going to take us through the month of February to really find our rhythm but I’m excited about where we’re going and you can start to see it come together now.”
There’s a first time for everything
The players are not the only ones introducing themselves to Peoria. A former recruiting coordinator at Northwestern, Popovec-Goss comes to Bradley after sporting a 92-60 record with the Wildcats that included an NCAA Tournament victory and the team’s first Big Ten regular-season title in 30 years.
Heading her own program after four years in Evanston, she’s ready to get to work.
“I’m just excited for the opportunity to mentor young people,” Popovec-Goss said. “That’s why I love to coach, and the opportunity to do it in a way that I feel is unique to me, to be able to call the shots and have the opportunity to manage not just a team, but my staff and to foster the relationships in the Peoria community. I’m just proud of my girls and I’ve really enjoyed coaching them.”
Popovec-Goss takes over for the retired Gorski, who guided the Braves to consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time ever and the program’s only NCAA tournament appearance. As someone who was recruited by Gorski, Waite thinks the squad will adapt well to a new leader.
“I think in this instance, the change is very good and everyone’s been very positive and wanting to work hard because we all have the same goal and we really want to get to it,” Waite said.
The Braves’ head coach excels with the forwards, especially on the defensive end. Playing forward during her career, Popovec-Goss was instrumental in the development of two-time All-Big Ten selection Pallas Kunayi-Akpanah as well as first-teamer Abi Scheid, who finished second in the country in 3-point percentage.
While her affinity to the post position is clear, she loves everyone on the team and is optimistic about their chances this season. That is, as long as they stick to “the process.”
“I’ve got a great group of 14 kids that are great student-athletes, and I think that the results are going to show themselves as we continue to commit to the process,” Popovec-Goss said.
Bigs set to lead
With such a fresh batch of faces, it’s important now more than ever to have leaders who can guide the team throughout the trials of a season. For Popovec-Goss, she’s found that piece in senior captain Veronika Roberts.
“I’m really proud of [Roberts]. She’s our lone senior and I really challenged her when I took the job to be exactly that: a senior,” Popovec-Goss said. “Be a voice, be a presence every single day and help guide people through what practice should look like because she’s been in practice for four years and she understands the rigors of it. I think she’s really stepped up to the plate.”
While Roberts may not stuff the stat sheet, the 6-foot-1 forward plays the fundamentals for the Braves by setting the screens and being the main communicator on the court.
Another name that will help guide this team is the other captain, junior Isis Fitch. The highest returning point-scorer behind Waite, Fitch will look to take that next step up in her game and mentor the youth, even if she may not be the most vocal about it.
“Isis just embodies what it is to be a leader by example,” Popovec-Goss said. “Every single day she brings 120% effort to the gym and I think that’s something that everyone can learn from.”
Danso has also taken a step up in filling her leadership shoes. While her role hasn’t changed, it’s evident that the extra year of experience makes a difference for Danso, especially when dealing with such a new team.
“I think I still have the same hustle in me,” Danso said. “The only changes would be that I’m not an underclassman, so guiding in those newcomers and even if they’re not freshman, just guiding them and kind of letting them know the program and the culture.”
Down, but not out
The Braves were picked to finish 11th in the MVC’s preseason poll, just above Illinois-Chicago who won two games last year while playing in the Horizon League. Valparaiso came in tenth and Evansville, who was Bradley’s only conference win last season, checked in at ninth.
As is the case with most coaches, the preseason rankings do not matter to Popovec-Goss.
“[We] just need to worry about us,” Popovec-Goss said. “It’s always going to be about Bradley and if we just focus on the process of what we need to do, the wins take care of themselves.”
Waite notices the placement but as far as she’s concerned, it’s just fuel to the fire.
“We’re just using that as motivation,” Waite said. “We know we’re at the bottom but we have a lot to prove from last year and I know we all want to.”
That same sentiment lives in Popovec-Goss too, despite not being here last season. Still, she knows how much her team cares about their improvement and only hopes for the best out of them each and every day.
“Where we finish is going to be a result of the work that we put in and that’s all we can worry about,” Popovec-Goss said.
