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Stephanie Lynch, who has accepted a scholarship offer to play volleyball at Purdue next year, is slowly making the physical transition from volleyball to basketball. New Albany head coach Todd Satterly talked about her transition recently in the New Albany Tribune.

"After volleyball it's taking her a little while to adjust. But I have no doubt that she'll be putting up bigger numbers as the season goes on. She's getting (more adjusted) every game. It's got to be difficult when you're concentrating on your volleyball skills for all that time then you step onto the basketball court. It's a tough transition, but just having her out of the floor right now is beneficial. It brings a sort of calm to the other girls just for her to be out there."

New Albany is off to its best start (4-0) since the 1998-99 state championship season, with Lynch starting out slow offensively, averaging 6.3 points per game.

Coach let's Jodi Howell loose

The following appeared on the women's forum last week, brought here to be archived.

Going into Wednesday, Alexandria was 1-4. Although Jodi fractured her right ring finger in the pre-season, and again in warmups before the Shenandoah game, that wasn't the main reason her touches and scoring has slipped this year.

In a move he now sees as a "bad mistake", Coach Jon Howell went into the season with handcuffs on Jodi. The object was to get the rest of the team more involved since Jodi has been getting so much attention.

Coach Howell's philosophy changed last Saturday following the Tipton loss. He was faced with a team with one of the premier perimeter players in the nation that was 1-4. And to make matters worse, that premier perimeter player only had one shot in the fourth quarter going into the final minute. Coach Howell moved her to the point to bring the ball up the floor under the Tipton press. What happened was she would advance the ball up the floor quickly, shooting passes downcourt to teammates. More often than not, the ball would be shot or turned over before Jodi could join the set at the offensive end of the court.

Following a team meeting on Monday, Jodi was worked back into the offense. The result was a 83-37 win over Lapel, a similar team, in Jon Howell's opinion, to Tipton (Alex lost to Tipton by 4). Jodi finished with 46 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the perimeter, 7 of 9 from inside the arc, and 2 of 2 from the line.

While it might have appeared as if the finger was holding her back, it was actually a coaching decision. As Coach Howell puts it, "Often times, coaches think too much."

Ta'Shia Phillips off to a good start

Ta"Shia Phillips is averaging 21.6 points and 16.7 rebounds per game to date.

Below is a link to a photo gallery from a Brebeuf game. Phillips in featured in several pictures. Look for jersey No. 55.