Southern Indiana basketball boasts lofty goals ahead of 2024-25 season

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) – Southern Indiana basketball is back on the hardwood for their first official practices this week. Both teams are using last year as motivation for this season but in two different ways.

The men’s team wants no repeat of last season’s on-court and off-court struggles.

This fall head coach Stan Gouard and his coaching staff sport eight transfers, seven of them juniors, and all with a work ethic not seen last season. The goal is to be better than the 2023-24 team that went 8-24. It does not seem hard to do, right? But to achieve that goal, the Screaming Eagles must learn to mesh together.

“Obviously when you have a a whole roster of new guys, you’ve got to form chemistry,” said senior forward Jack Mielke. “I feel like we’re doing that really well. Whether that’s, playing in practice together or even getting guys together outside of practice to play together and work out together, I feel we’re meshing really well and learning each other really well. I think that’s just going to play to our advantage come season time.”

“We’ll shoot the ball better, I think we’ll play harder, and I think the guys are going to be on the same page,” said Gouard. You know, we were not on the same page last year, that was evident. And, we got to get on the same page. So as coaches, we have to slow down and look for those things every day in film sessions and in practice. So that way we can address those issues and hopefully it trickles into onto the basketball court.”

As for the women’s team, they will try to follow a season unlike any other.

A 17-1 conference record, a regular-season championship, and a tournament championship. But with the bar set even higher than it was ahead of the move to Division I three years ago, success for head coach Rick Stein’s group now has a different meaning than it did before. And it does not involve last season.

“You have to kind of move on, it’s a new year,” said senior guard Vanessa Shafford. “New challenges are to be faced. And, you understand how hard we had to work to get to that point. But I think I keep it in [my mind] just to realize how hard we had to work and, understanding that things aren’t going to be any easier. If anything, they’re going to be harder.”

“We can’t gauge this year’s success by what we did last year,” said Stein. “Totally different team. and we’re playing against totally different teams. I mean, you know, our schedule is different overall, and then the league is different. They have four new head coaches in the league. There’s teams that are completely new, 12, 13 new players, all brand new players. So it’s going to look really different.”

Both men’s and women’s basketball teams will begin the regular season on November 4.

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