ROCKINGHAM - When first-year Richmond Senior High School varsity girls basketball coach Teddy Moseley inherited the program in early June upon the departure of former coach Rosalind McDonald, his No. 1 goal was to get his players to “buy into” his system.
Just a couple of weeks later, Moseley and company got their first taste of live action in the Union Pines High School jamboree on Friday, June 29, in Moore County. And for Moseley, who was a state title runner-up in 1996 with Richmond, all of the pieces fell into place -- despite only having one full team practice.
A day prior to the jamboree, Moseley and 13 Lady Raiders basketball players assembled in the high school’s gym for the first full team practice after having a handful of summer workouts. And it was apparent the 39-year-old head coach is already hyped up and invested in the upcoming 2018-2019 season.
Not afraid to jump in and demonstrate drills first-hand to a combination of returning varsity starters and incoming freshmen, Moseley made it clear several times throughout the mid-morning workout that the Richmond girls program “would not got 6-15” under his watch.
Aside from introducing players to a new offensive and defensive scheme, Moseley used this time to help establish rapports with his players and fine-tune their fundamentals, both of which are important elements in Moseley’s quest to turn the program around.
“Right now we’re just working on the basics,” Moseley said Thursday. “We’re going to put in a simple offense and defense (in the early going), and work on inbound plays. A lot of the girls aren’t in basketball shape, but I expect that this time of year and we’re getting better at it. We’ll be up and down the floor in no time.
“The main thing right now is getting all of the girls to buy into what me and the other coaches are trying to do,” he continued. “A 6-15 record isn’t going to cut it.”
The Lady Raiders won just six games last season, which solidified a sixth-place finish in the inaugural Sandhills Athletic Conference season. Going 3-11 in SAC play, Richmond only managed to pick up wins against Purnell Swett High School (two wins) and Scotland High School (one win), which were the last two teams in the conference.
With his win-or-go-home attitude, Moseley’s passion for the game seems to be well received by his players so far. He’s implementing different systems on both ends of the court, and is looking at several returning and rising players to adapt and become leaders.
Among the returners on a “guard heavy” team will be rising seniors Tasheka Harrington, Jayana Nicholson, Dannon Shepard and Taliah Wall, as well as rising juniors Keionna Love, Layne Maultsby, Hailey Miller and Allexis Swiney, who led the Lady Raiders with 9.7 points per game a season ago. Hopeful newcomers to the varsity level will be rising sophomore and go-to point guard Jayla McDougald, and rising freshman Alliyah Swiney, who is already raising eyebrows alongside her older sister.
“Allexis looks good all-around, especially on the defensive end,” Moseley said of the rising junior guard. “She rotates very well. Dannon looks good too, as she’ll be able to play the post as well as on the perimeter. I have to get everyone used to running our system, and I can use a lot of players in different roles.”
And following Friday’s jamboree, which the Lady Raiders competed in three games, Moseley now has a better feeling on the direction of the team.
In the jamboree’s opening game, despite only having one legitimate practice and missing several returning players, Richmond fell to reigning North Carolina High School Athletic Association 3A state champion Northern Guilford High School (Greensboro, N.C.) by 10 points. But Moseley noted his team “should have won,” and fell short because it missed roughly 10 “wide-open layups” and “didn’t play” the best basketball.
However, the Lady Raiders would rebound in their final two games, beating Eastern Alamance High School (3A, Mebane, N.C.) 56-46, and Orange High School (3A, Hillsborough, N.C.) in a convincing 51-21 effort.
“As we went along, we got better,” Moseley commented. “I told the girls that the shots will fall. In the second and third games, we just played and got into the flow of the game. We kept playing and our defense was incredible -- absolutely amazing. Making adjustments in the last two games helped us.
“Against Orange, everything just clicked,” he added. “The biggest thing was the girls were having fun playing basketball. They were cheering each other on, and every person who played, played great. They’re playing with more confidence and they haven’t played like this in years -- the parents were in on it, too. We’re going to be fun to watch this year.”
With more summer workouts and practices planned in the coming weeks, Moseley hopes to get his team involved in a couple more jamborees to continue the program’s progress. In the meantime, Moseley will keep working with his players in practice to get season ready.
“Allexis and Alliyah were really dialed in and are so fast and strong that they can literally change the pace of the game,” Moseley concluded. “We’ll press a lot on defense, and we’ve got so much team speed.
“We can be good enough to where we can have three starting fives and not skip a beat,” he added about his talent and rotation vision. “Chloe Wiggins (rising senior) will be coming back -- and we’re guard heavy, so we can rotate girls in and out. I was impressed.”
