LCC Titans practice has been paying off this season.
Greg Sheley is both the Athletic Director and Women’s Basketball Coach at Lane Community College. He helped lead the Women’s Basketball Team through one of their most dominant seasons last year going nearly undefeated.
What is your background in coaching?
I’ve been here since 1999. I was hired as a physical education instructor and women’s basketball coach in ‘99. Before that I was at Butte College for seven years and in Northern California right outside of Chico. I was a part time coach there and I was a middle school instructor. So I’ve been here since ‘99 and then in 2009 I took over as the Director of Athletics and also continued to coach.
The team crushed it last year, do you think you’ll be able to recreate that dominance again this year?
Last year was really special, we went 28-0 and then we had our one bad game in the semi-finals for the Northwest Championship Tournament. We didn’t play very well and it was our only loss of the season. But before that we were shooting the box, scoring at a high rate and playing really really well. To recreate that this year is going to be very tough. We had so many exceptional shooters last year we had six kids who shot over 36% from the floor, from the 3-point line, which is really really exceptional so I don’t know that we will be able to recreate the scoring ability that we had last year, but I think we will be a better defending team. I still think we will still be extremely competitive and hopefully will still result in a lot of wins which would then put us in position to be hopefully playing for the championship this year instead of being one game away.
Are there any teams that you think will be challenging to go up against this year?
Our Southern Division is historically the toughest out of the four divisions. There are 37 teams split among those four divisions. Umpqua always historically has a really good team. I think they are going to be good again this year so they are gonna be tough. Clackamas up in Oregon City historically has a really good team. I think they’re returning some good players and brought in some new ones so they are going to be really good. Then there is usually a rotation of three or four other teams that aren’t good every year but come through every once in a while. Chemeketa has a chance to be pretty good this year and Linn Benton has a chance to be pretty good this year. So I think those will be some opportunities that we are going to have to really be ready to go in our league division. Now in our pre-season which is before the league we have a lot of opponents that I think are going to be tough. Our schedule is going to be very tough this year.
