Still more to do at Eastern for women's coach Wendy Schuller

Six seasons of slow steady progress building his basketball program at Eastern Washington University helped get Jim Hayford a new gig at Seattle University last month.

While there are no guarantees, after 16 seasons as head coach of the Eagle women, Wendy Schuller seems content to continue building her program at Eastern. After all, what would the city of Cheney do without her husband Mark, the man of many hats at City Hall?

Ever since an injury-riddled season in 2007-08 that produced a 4-25 finish, things have moved upward and forward under Schuller’s direction. The past eight seasons, following Eastern winning a Big Sky Conference regular-season title in 2009-10, the Eagles have seen post solid numbers with four 20-win campaigns and just one with a sub-.500 record.

Yes, it is a good place where Schuller and the program currently reside, but it’s a top-to-bottom team effort. It’s not just those people on the court.

“I attribute that to the people around me,” Schuller said. “Really and truly, starting at the top with the school president, (Dr. Mary Cullinan) and (athletics director) Bill (Chaves) and the support we get from him,” Schuller said.

That goes for the rest of the crew, who Schuller said, “Are all on the same side and the same page. They do so much to make us successful.”

It’s all led to being able to recruit talented players, ”But some great young women,” Schuller said. And that helps breed consistency, which has led to her teams compiling an overall record of 149-109, a .577 percentage and 93-49 in Big Sky play for a .654 winning record in the past eight seasons since the championship.

While winning records are good for a coach keeping their job, the real goal of a college program is to prepare their student athletes for life after hoops. With a cumulative grade-point average of 3.637, the team was honored by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association following the 2015-16 season and a No. 4 spot in that group’s Academic Top-25.

The Eagles finished 19-14 overall in 2016-17 and 12-6 in conference play. They entered the league tournament in Reno as the No. 4 seed where they met regular-season co-champ Montana State in the semifinals, losing 61-59 on a late Bobcat basket and an Eagle miss at the buzzer.

“I can’t tell you how hard it was emotionally,” Schuller said. “I thought we had come together in the conference tournament, really playing together, and that made that Montana State loss really, really difficult, for me, the assistant coaches, for all the rest of the players,” she added.

While failing to make it to the NCAA tournament, Eastern did earn a postseason berth in the Women’s Basketball Invitational. They went on the road and collected a 66-62 win in overtime against Texas State in San Marcos but lost in their fourth meeting of the season with Idaho at Reese Court, 74-67.

Where do things need to go from here?

“I don’t think there’s one thing in particular,” Schuller said. “We’ve got to do everything a little better, whether it’s in recruiting or player development.”

A talented freshman class, “Could come in and give us some good production and push us to the next level,” she said.

And considering, “We were still really young this year,” Schuller said with 10 or 11 freshmen and sophomores on the roster, that might not be many rungs on the ladder. Scoring leader Delaney Hodgins (17.5), a senior to be, returns in 2017-18.

Eastern had just two seniors, Tisha Phillips and Ashli Payne, on its playing roster. “They were a big part of our success and not easy to replace,” with respective scoring averages of 14 and 12.3 points per game.

“People will step up, there’s always rebounds to be had and balls to be shot,” Schuller said. “And defensive stoppers, somebody will have to step up.”

Currently, the staff is working on evaluating the group of recruits who will be on campus in 2018. And it’s a very restrictive avenue that must be traveled.

“Recruiting includes a contact where we might go to a kid’s house and talk to them,” Schuller said. Those are small windows, two weeks in April and 20 days in July. “That’s all,” she added.

The mother of three — plus another group of 18-21 year-olds — looks forward to the offseason, which hardly offers much downtime.

“It’s not quite the adrenaline rush we have for six months (in the regular season), but we never stop working,” Schuller said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.