Wiggins has turned team and program around
Warm-up the bikes
Darrell Copeland III |
In the big picture, Fresno State is known for its football program. At least in recent days.
We’re all still trying to forget the Tarkanian-era antics that had players swinging samurai swords and committing academic fraud.
During the same era — and for years before and after — the Bulldogs’ women’s basketball program was the doormat for the Dukes of the world. They were the Northwest school for blind VCR repair men, or one of those other schools that receives
requests to be the homecoming game.
Andrew Riggs / The Collegian
Fresno State’s constant pressure proved to be too much for the visiting No. 18 BYU Cougars.
Joseph Vasquez / The Collegian
The celebration during the game was only the beginning for Fresno State’s Kendra Walker-Roche, Paige Diggs, Jenny Thigpen and Erica Henry (left to right), who went on to knock off No. 18 BYU 61-51. |
But like a semi-truck making a three-point turn, the women’s basketball program has finally cleared the curb, and it seems to have cleared it by plenty.
Some credit must be given to former coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, who initially changed the culture of the program, but more importantly, brought along with her Adrian Wiggins, the current head coach of the Bulldogs. This is where the third of those three turns has been made.
Last season, Fresno State did the unexpected by setting a new record for wins in a season with 24.
And this season, the Bulldogs have already started off by taking down Utah — a usual occupier of a top 25 spot — and No. 18 BYU, who the Bulldogs took down Friday night, possibly starting some top 25 buzz of their own. The Cougars had also just knocked off No. 4 Stanford — who will come to town later this season — prior to losing at the hands of Wiggins and the Bulldogs 61-51.
Wait a minute, so the Bulldogs went from being a doormat as little as five years ago to a team on the verge of a national ranking? How exactly does this happen? For Fresno State, it has been a unique formula.
Aside from bringing a fresh start to the program, Johnson-Klein brought what has been found to be an aggressive environment to her teams, which among other events, led to her firing. This is where the real turnaround begins.
Little did anyone know the kind of person that Wiggins would be after being thrust into the spotlight. If you’ve never had the pleasure to talk with him, make some time to in the future. He’s the kind of man you’d choose as the guardian of your child should something happen to you. The anti-Madonna, if you will.
From that point where Wiggins took the reigns of the team, that point where he began teaching not just basketball, but life to his players, something happened.
And whatever that something was, it has turned around this program, it has made the pain of the doormat era vanish, and the sharper pain of the walk-on-glass Stacy Johnson-Klein era heal quicker for the athletes.
This has all translated into success for the Bulldogs’ basketball program, such as the victory against BYU. Under Wiggins, those things are now expected, rather than miracles. The team has bonded, rather than split.
“We’ve been through a lot, as a group we’ve been through a lot,” said Bulldogs senior Chantella Perera, someone who has been through those ups and downs. Perera would know better than anyone the work it has taken to turn the program around.
“I think that all that experience and all those things that we went through, it makes us tough, and that’s something no one can take away from us,” she said. “And I see that when we get out there [on the court]. We want it for each other.”
Doesn’t look like the Dukes of the world will be calling anymore, unless they’re just calling to say hi.
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