By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
With a 12-15 record, Joplin’s girls basketball team completed its best season in more than a dozen years last winter under head coach Luke Floyd.
After two years at Joplin, Floyd is now coaching at Willard and the Eagles have turned to a familiar face in Brad Cox to take things over. He’s been Joplin’s head middle school coach and started his career in Kansas City, where he was head coach at Southwest High School. He coached at a charter school for a few years after that and later coached the freshmen at Grandview.
He’s also Joplin’s offensive line coach in football.
“I have a daughter coming up and her friends so this is a perfect opportunity to start a new chapter in my life,” Cox said. “Coach Floyd did a great job while he was here at Joplin, really raised the standard. I feel like the girls are starting to buy in a little more. We had a great summer and we were able to go play a lot and we made a lot of improvements. We have a lot of girls coming back this year that didn’t play last year and a lot of our pretty good athletes in the school are coming out to play so I’m very excited about that.”
The Eagles must replace players like Ella Hafer and Emma Floyd, who both graduated after earning postseason honors. Hafer was honorable mention All-Conference in the COC and Floyd was on the COC All-Defense team.
Senior Brynn Driver is a returning starter at guard who averaged 10.6 points per game last year along with three rebounds, three assists and three steals. That’s a big chunk of the team’s returning production; the Eagles averaged 48 points, eight assists and nine steals per game.
“Brynn will be somebody I consider a leader on our team coming back,” Cox said. “We’re going to look to her to supply a lot on the defensive side and offensive side.”
Senior Isabella Yust is another returning guard who earned some starts last season.
Other contributors will be sophomore guard/forward Riley Kelly, sophomore forward Abby Lowery, and sophomore guards Libby Munn and Maria Loum as well as junior guard Ashley Phillips and senior Jill McDaniel. Senior Serafina Auberry didn’t play as a junior but is back this year, and junior Bailey Ledford is back after playing varsity as a freshman but sitting out last season.
Cox said this year’s roster will be “very, very quick” but is lacking in size and he expects the team’s strength will be defensive play.
He expects the program’s overall numbers to be up this year and said with a full roster he’ll probably have to make some cuts, which hasn’t always been necessary at Joplin.
“It’s always a terrible feeling but we’ll let them know what they need to do to get better,” he said.
“One thing about the staff this year is really emphasizing to the girls that we just want the best version of themselves,” he said. “If they bring the best version of themselves we feel like everything else will fall into place. That’s what we’re preaching to them, trying to get their confidence up after a few losing years.”
He’s also told the players that he’s not going anywhere soon.
“I love Joplin High School, I enjoy teaching here,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of turnover in coaches over the last few years here and I’m here for the long haul as long as they’ll have me. I told the girls they’re part of our foundation. We can have a hole in the wall, hole in the roof but if you have a crack in the foundation you’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re really going to try to establish our foundation, the way we play here and hopefully continue to grow from there.”
Joplin travels to Monett on Nov. 15 for a jamboree, and opens the season Nov. 18-19 in the Kickapoo Invitational. Joplin hosts the Freeman Lady Eagle Classic in December and travels to the I-44 Lady’s Classic in Lebanon in January. Home games against Lee’s Summit and Strafford are new additions.
“We’ve beefed up the schedule to try to get us better competition this year,” Cox said. “We’re ready to play. We’re not afraid to play anybody.”
