We are still about 4 weeks away from the tip-off of the college basketball season, which means that we have plenty of time to prepare for the action ahead. We will do so via a series of season previews featuring the best players/coaches in the country. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our coverage with Detroit Mercy women’s coach Kate Achter, who talked about her recruiting philosophy and her expectations for this season.
In 2005 as a freshman at Bowling Green you were named conference tourney MVP: how were you able to make such a smooth transition from high school to college? The reality of the transition was that it was not easy at all. I did not start the first handful of games as a freshman, and even when I was able to get the confidence to be on the floor the pace/strength was a lot to handle. Thankfully I played with exceptional teammates who took a ton of pressure off me so that I was able to just focus on competing. Once I figured out that I was a better competitor than just a basketball player, it all seemed to sync up.
In 2007 you were part of the 1st women’s team in MAC history to make the Sweet 16: what is your favorite memory from that postseason run? My favorite memory from that postseason run came after our last game. We got beat up pretty bad by ASU and we were all exhausted/dejected. As we pulled onto campus our coaches asked us to go over to the rec center because there was a dance-a-thon and the school wanted to welcome us back. We had not even gone back to our houses yet and now we all had one more thing to do: you can imagine how thrilled we all were! So we all headed over in our matching bright orange/black travel suits…and were absolutely blown away. The students rushed the stage, cheered us on the whole way up to the stage, and gave us a champions welcome. We could not believe it; they were so proud to be Falcons because of what we had done. It was easily one of the coolest things I have ever been a part of.
As a senior you were named conference POY/All-American: what did it mean to you to receive such outstanding honors? Those are two of the best honors of my career and ones that came with so much work/preparation. I am immensely proud to be one of the few to have ever earned that recognition at Bowling Green, but I certainly understand that those awards are not earned alone. I had tremendous teammates/coaches who were a huge part of my individual success.
Your 688 AST remains #1 in school history: what is the secret to being a good PG? The biggest key: have teammates who can make the open shots you are giving them. The other is knowing when/where the opening will come: sort of an “if this, then that” approach to reading the game.
After graduation you played pro basketball in Greece: what is the biggest difference between basketball in the US v. basketball overseas? For me the biggest difference aside from language was experience/age. I was competing against grown women as opposed to 18-22-year-olds. Everything that was a struggle during my freshman year of college was immediately multiplied ten times over.
In the 2012 Sweet 16 as an assistant at St. Bonaventure you had a pair of single-digit wins before losing to eventual national runner-up Notre Dame: could you tell at the time that Skylar Diggins was going to become a star? Absolutely. Scouting that Notre Dame group was a nightmare: they had so many options out of their Princeton offense and so many weapons to hurt you with. Skylar was obviously the head of the monster, but man: they had a lot for us to contend with.
You have a BS/Masters in education, and during your 6 seasons as head coach at Loyola Chicago your team’s GPA increased from a 2.4 to a 3.5: how much importance do you place on academics? Academics have always been/will always be a priority for me as a head coach. We are on a similar path here at Detroit and our women are responding like champions. I know that the ball will stop bouncing one day and it is my job to help prepare our women for that day.
In 2018 you were inducted into the Bowling Green Hall of Fame: where does that rank among the highlights of your career? It is the biggest honor of my career. I think the thing that is still hard for me to wrap my head around is that the Hall of Fame was never my goal: winning was the goal. Now that I am part of the Hall of Fame my ties to BGSU will never fade. What we did as a team will always be recognized for a number of reasons, but to also be recognized personally for being a big part of that success is surreal.
Your roster includes 4 players from Michigan and 5 players from foreign countries: what sort of recruiting philosophy do you have? I think our roster only tells a small piece of what our recruiting philosophy is. The international influence on our roster is mostly inherited. I took over a team that had 6 players from Spain/Portugal. Many of those players are currently seniors…but the Michigan part we had to work really hard on. Our overall geographic philosophy is to be within about 4 hours or so of Detroit, with a hard focus on the city itself. That does not mean we cannot look outside that radius: it just means we want to protect our home base first. Some of our must-haves for recruiting include being a competitor, a two-level scorer, and a great teammate.
What are your goals for this season, and what are your expectations for this season? I expect our team to be better in almost every area. We have experience in positions we did not have a year ago and we became more athletic across the board. I think we will still have moments where we are learning to come together as a team, but overall it should be much improved. The goal right now is focused on improving through each phase of our season: non-conference, conference, and postseason play. Obviously, we have numbers that we would like to reach, but I think those are the intimate pieces that we get to hold onto as a team. For now, the goal is to improve our win total from last year and have a whole lot of fun checking off the boxes in getting there!