Gold Rush Feature: Brooke Thomas
12/7/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 7, 2010
This article was originally published in the Nov. 20 edition of Gold Rush.
By Sam Walker
Few things make a head basketball coach sleep better than knowing they have an experienced point guard. It may be cliché' to say it all starts at the point, but there is a certain measure of truth to it, and having someone like Brooke Thomas at point for the Wake Forest women's basketball team probably makes Coach Mike Petersen a bit more settled entering this year.
"Experience is the best teacher, and she got a ton of experience her first two years," Petersen said. "She's way ahead of where she was a year ago. She's better, a little more patient. Point guards, especially early in their careers, want to make the perfect play, and sometimes they pass up the good play. I think Brooke is more focused now on making the good play rather than the perfect play and can be more of a facilitator of our offense."
Petersen has somebody in Thomas who knows the system, knows what she has been successful doing at the collegiate level and knows what is expected game in and game out. She is also better adapted to the rigors of the long season and what it takes to finish strong. That's the advantage of being a junior. In her first two seasons, Thomas has 52 starts. As a sophomore, she played in all 32 games, averaged 4.6 points a game and was the team-leader in assists with 126.
"I think the most important thing for me to do for the team is just be that vocal director and leader on the court and make sure that I take care of the ball," Thomas said. "Possessions are important, and when you lose the ball, you can't score. What I've been focusing on is cutting down my turnovers, because even though I get a lot of assists, I do commit a lot of turnovers, or have in the past. I want to limit that.
"And it's not really ball-handling, its more decision-making. What I did over the summer was watch a lot of film with the assistant coaches and also with Coach (Jeff) Battle of the men's team. The game is not that hard. You read the defense and make the right decision. In the past, I got sped up, would pass when I should shoot or shoot when I should have passed. Just making the right play is important. Becoming a student of the game is important, because when you see things happen over and over again, you see what's open every time. Then, out on the court, you remember and react. That's when the game slows down. I'm quick, and sometimes I'm too fast, so I learned to slow down."
Thomas was ninth in the ACC at 3.9 assists per game and was also tied for eighth in the conference at 2.1 steals per contest. She made 43-of-162 field goals and was a team best 53 of 71 (74.6 percent) from the free-throw line among players with significant playing time. Thomas ranked 10th in the ACC with an assist/turnover ratio of 0.9 and finished the year with 82 rebounds.
As a freshman, she averaged over 26 minutes per contest and led team with 4.7 assists per game, which placed her in the NCAA's Top 50 in the assist category. But she knew she had to improve if she wanted to be her best and during the summer following her freshman season, Thomas attended "Point Guard College." It is an intense program founded by former Duke player Dick DeVenzio, and it is held around the country at different sites each summer. The camp website says it is designed to "teach basketball players to play the game intelligently, to train purposefully, to be `coaches on the court' and to be true leaders during games, in practice, during the offseason, and in everyday life."
"One of the things they taught me was that once I get into the paint and scoring area I need to slow down so I can make good decisions," she said. Making good decisions will help improve her assist-to-turnover ratio and make her the floor general this team will need to raise the program to new heights, which is the already established goal.
"That's something we've talked about and worked on with her," Petersen said. "The most important statistics for a point guard to me are your team's won-loss record, your assist-to-turnover ratio, and your team's field-goal percentage. Being a point guard is like being a quarterback, and your assist- to-turnover ratio is a real good indication of what you are doing with the ball. And your team's field-goal percentage is a good indication on how well the offense is working."
"Last season we thought was a very big year for us," Thomas said. "We thought we could make the (NCAA) tournament with 20 wins and then fell short with 19. We felt like we were just one possession away, so now we've all come in focused to break 19 wins."
Another positive factor at the point this season is that Thomas won't have to do it alone. Freshman guard Chelsea Douglas looks to be a player who will immediately contribute and allow Thomas to stay fresh throughout the season. It's depth that Petersen said this team needed.
"Chelsea is really good, exciting, and she has this confidence in her...which I think is really good for our team because the coaches have always been like, `Brooke, you have to be more confident' - not cocky but have an edge," Thomas said. "That's what Coach P has always wanted to me to have. Chelsea has that. I'm going to be more assertive, and I've developed in that area, but she is fun to watch, so I enjoy watching her and she is making me a lot better."
"It has been good for Brooke to have Chelsea Douglas there because the two of them have had a really healthy competition in practice and have been doing a great job together. So I think they have faith in one another, confidence in one another, and they push each other hard every day in practice, so it's been good for both of them."
Thomas has the experience to know how to react now "when the pressure is on," and Douglas may learn much from Thomas about those kind of moments as the year progresses. Thomas says she feels better prepared for those moments. Better prepared than she was her first two seasons.
"I feel good about where we are at point guard, and there are things for both Brooke and Chelsea to focus on," Petersen said. "A lot more goes into being a good basketball player than just how many points did I score. So I want our point guards to be the best they can be when the opportunity presents itself.
"It's my job as head coach not to identify the five best players," Petersen said. "It's my job to identify the best five players. I care about which five are going to take the floor and do the best job together."
And finding them, cliché' or not, all starts at the point.
