As the fourth Lady Bulldog to ever surpass 1,500 points and 500 rebounds, there isn’t much left for Tan White to do.
The senior guard from Tupelo has averaged 19 points and almost seven rebounds each season and received her fourth straight preseason All-Southeastern Conference selection last Thursday in Birmingham, Ala., at SEC Media Days.
Besides the obvious desires of helping the Lady Dawgs compete in and out of the premier women’s basketball conference and returning to postseason after a one-year hiatus, White has another goal.
In the team’s media guide White said one thing she wanted to get better at is communicating.
As she and fellow senior Rebecca Kates sat side-by-side at a large round table in a cavernous conference room, the two flipped through their own copies of the media guides.
“Man, look at how many turnovers I made my freshman year,” Tan said reflectively.
“I know, I was there,” chimed Rebecca with a smile.
“Whoa,” Tan said, still in shock that she had so many turnovers.
Quicker than her crossover dribble, Tan retaliated by pointing out she had almost twice as many rebounds as Rebecca last season.
“Well that’s cause you shoot and miss and get your rebounds all the time,” Rebecca said with an even bigger smile.
Then Tan started an informal lecture stressing the importance of rebounding to Rebecca, a 6-foot-1 forward who in three seasons, has consistently been in the low post against girls four to seven inches taller.
“Let me tell you about rebounding,” Rebecca said looking up from the guide. “I just want to say that I am always blocking out the big girl and then there comes little ol’ Tan.”
If that happened every time it would be fine with head coach Sharon Fanning. Her team ranked last in the conference last year in rebounding margin. Opponents last season out-rebounded State 1,162 to 999, which translated into 5.6 fewer boards for the Lady Dawgs per game.
“We are a small basketball team, but we have enough quickness to be successful and enough experience,” Fanning said. “We have eight kids that have played in the second round of the NCAA tournament.”
Fanning said her team’s ability to communicate and understanding of where teammates are on the floor will key the team’s success this year.
“The leadership has been the best that we’ve seen in a long, long time. I know we’ve made progress because of our seniors,” Fanning said. “It’s really good to see them teaching the other players. Tan, Rebecca, Tiania (Burns), Doceide (Warren), Mamie (McKinney) and Blessing (Chekwa)-those six really understand the system.”
“The seniors have three years of knowing how each other plays,” White said.
“There’s a lot of verbal communication directing traffic. It helps the learning process,” Kates explained of her teaching role. “Amy Reeder has impressed me. She’s very quiet, very shy. She doesn’t say much, but she picks up very well.”
White said the emphasis of playing with a total team effort fuels the need and desire to communicate effectively.
“I think the identity when I first got here was focused on Tan and Toya (LaToya Thomas). Now that she’s gone, it’s a total team effort,” White said. “Last year everybody just kind of pulled together as a team.”
With the extra focus on communication, Kates said the team can only improve.
“All our energy on the court is really positive,” she said. “We’re closer together than we’ve been in the past.”