Looking for players in the transfer portal is almost scary for Ball State women’s basketball head coach Brady Sallee.
Scary because he wants to guard the Ball State women’s basketball culture. A culture he has built for the past 13 seasons.
Sallee is not so afraid anymore after going “four for four” in the portal this year.
“I think the beauty of these four, is that they wanted the culture and what came with it,” Sallee said. “A lot of lot of these kids in the portal, they want the cash and they want the glitz. These four wanted the culture.
“They have impacted the program early and often.”
Senior transfer Lachelle Austin, graduate student Elise Stuck, graduate student Maliyah Johnson and junior Tessa Towers all made an impact in an 89-63 win over IU Indy.
Austin has faced Ball State in the past at her former school Eastern Michigan. She said she would try as hard as she possibly could against the Cardinals every chance she got.
“I already knew what the outcome was going to be, but hey, never backed down,” Austin said.
The Ball State culture Sallee talked about was all about “fight” for Austin. She said she knew what she signed up for by coming to Ball State and wanted the tough coaching to improve herself.
“You can't show up one day and be mediocre, you gotta show up every day ready to go,” Austin said. “Because if you don’t you're going to get exposed.”
Johnson’s sister, assistant coach Mariah King, played for Sallee at Eastern Illinois. Johnson has been around Sallee for essentially her whole life, and now she is a player under him.
“I've been watching [Sallee coach] as a kid,” Johnson said. “As a kid, I'm like, ‘Oh, that's just Uncle B.’ He's he's never yelling, or anything. But I feed off his passion, his fuel.”
For Johnson, the support within the Ball State women’s basketball team is what makes the culture unique. From the players, coaches, staff, graduate assistants and more, Johnson said the support is unlimited.
“I think having that support, having that togetherness, it feels better when you're being held accountable because you know it's coming from a good place,” Johnson said. “You know they want what is best for you.”
Austin finished with 14 points, four rebounds, four assists and four steals. Austin has had back-to-back double-figure outings in her first two games as a Cardinals. She said the flow of the offense has aided her skill set in reading defenders to know where to go next.
Johnson came off the bench and added nine points and five rebounds in her 22 minutes of action against the Jaguars.
Sallee said in-state games are always special and respects that IU Indy is one of the only teams in the state that will face the Cardinals.
“I appreciate the heck out of this rivalry,” Sallee said. “Our home court was the determiner in the outcome today. The crowd was great, the band was great, the students were great.”
Sallee said he felt the Cardinals dominate on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. The Cardinals led many statistical categories to back up Sallee's thoughts.
Ball State had more rebounds, had more assists, forced more turnovers, had more blocks, and had more points in the paint.
Sallee talked about wanting to improve the rotations for the Cardinals and said he was pleased with the groups on the floor today.
“We got in a rhythm a little bit better, I thought,” Sallee said. “Those are going to be ever-evolving. I think we got room to broaden that a little bit.”
Sallee’s key factor in rotations was the balance of the offense and said seeing five Cardinals in double-figures shows balance.
“That's a big stat, and I think that's hard to guard when you got that many people out there that can score the ball,” Sallee said. “It's hard to really focus on an Ally Becki or Lachelle or throwing it in the post, or whatever. You just got a bunch of people that can hoop.”
Sallee said “on-the-fly” adjustments are necessary and personnel adjustments are constantly changing.
“There's going to be times where it's schematic and you've got to be able to look at something defensively or offensively,” Sallee said. “But today it was a lot of personnel and how to adjust to what they were trying to do.”
On-the-fly adjustments resulted in a second quarter that saw Ball State outscore IU Indy 28-15. The Cardinals shot 57 percent from the field and 57 percent from three in the quarter.
Austin said the big second quarter comes from the Cardinals' week of preparation. She said locking in on opposing personnel and adjusting helps boost Ball State for the second frame.
“Out of each quarter, we always know that we have to amp it up,” Johnson said. “Like every quarter, we need to pick it up from the last. So I think that it is us just wanting to do the extra.
“We got to come out swinging first, [and] I think we all have that mentality of wanting to hit first in each quarter.”
Contact Elijah Poe via email at elijah.poe@bsu.edu or on X@ElijahPoe4.
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