North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Kastanek Ready for Sophomore Surge
10/22/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Oct. 22, 2010
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. – When Marissa Kastanek packed up her belongings last spring and headed home for the first session of summer school, she and her mother carefully planned a week-long vacation en route to Nebraska.
But they did precious little sight-seeing. Instead, they headed straight for Houston, where Kastanek spent several days working out with private basketball instructor Adam Barnes, who she first worked with in Nebraska.
The focus of their intense workouts – everything Kastanek does is intense – was to help Kastanek deal with the one-on-one pressure she will receive this season as one of the ACC’s top returning players.
“We tried to look into the future and anticipate how teams might guard me this year,” Kastanek said. “We know they won’t slack off. We know they will do things to try to stop me. So we tried to work on ways to get open against defensive pressure and double teams.”
Kastanek wouldn’t mind that at all – she has all the confidence in the world that she’ll create a few open shots and find even more open teammates.
“Other teams may try to guard the snot out of me,” Kastanek said. “I am 100 percent sure that my teammates can handle anything other teams throw at them. If they are going to guard me closely, I know someone else will be open.
“If they feel the need to put their best defender on me, that means someone who is not their best defender is on someone else.”
Last season, Kastanek embodied the new energy that first-year Wolfpack coach Kellie Harper brought to NC State’s basketball program, playing with a passion that spilled over to her teammates and excited fans. Quite frankly, Harper saw a lot of herself in the young shooting guard, so much so that by the end of the season Harper converted Kastanek to a point guard, the position the coach played for three national championship teams at Tennessee.
Her play at point guard was a big reason the Pack went on a late-season run, winning eight out of 10 games during one stretch, advancing to the ACC Tournament finals and earning a bid in the NCAA Tournament. But the Wolfpack lost its last two games, leaving Kastanek wanting more for the coming season.
“We saw how much potential we had at the end of the season,” she said. “We wish it didn’t end the way it did, with the loss to UCLA. We learned an important lesson about how we need to come focused every single time.”
Kastanek averaged 10.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 5.3 scrapes and bruises per game in her initial season with the Wolfpack, earning the ACC Rookie of the Year honors and Freshman All-America recognition from Full Court Press.
Those were nice awards to take back to her hometown of Lincoln, Neb., where she spent the first session of summer school. But they hardly satisfied Kastanek, who worked even harder to improve her second season.
She spent her summer at home working on fundamental with her former club team, for which her younger sister, Alexa, now plays. And she got some tips from the team’s coach, Dan Lesoing, who has mentored Kastanek since she was in the fifth grade.
“It kept me in the gym and kept me working on things that maybe I took for granted, like fundamentals,” Kastanek said. “I didn’t play a lot of pickup games while I was home. I never really have. I just worked on fundamentals.”
She had a specific list of areas where Harper wanted to see some improvement, particularly in her midrange game. She worked to improve her shooting off the dribble, her ball-handling skills and her overall conditioning.
So far, after nearly three weeks of practice, Harper is pleased with the results of Kastanek’s off-season workouts. She sees no reason for the young player to go through the sophomore slump that sometimes affects players in their second season.
“What makes Marissa so special is how hard she works at being good,” Harper said. “We don’t have to worry about her losing that. That’s who she is. She is going to outwork people. I just don’t see her losing that from her freshman to her sophomore year.”
Harper certainly doesn’t believe Kastanek will rest on the laurels of her freshman success.
“She’s too motivated to do that,” Harper said.
Of course, Kastanek’s motivation to be better can also lead to putting a lot of pressure on her to succeed. After two practices this season, she was worried.
“I have all these conversations in my head during practice: is this an ACC Rookie of the Year caliber performance?” she said. “Am I doing the right things? Oh my gosh, did I get worse over the summer?”
“I am not satisfied with where I am. My freshman year is over. It’s time for me to work on my sophomore year. So I come to practice every day, work hard and don’t worry about what we did last year.”
