The Red Hawks have several new faces—including a new head coach—but they remain well positioned to win another UCAA title.
"The players expect to win the conference," said John Greene, who has replaced Kim Rybczyk as the women’s basketball head coach.
"One of the things that made this position attractive to so many people," he said, is that Rybczyk left a quality program behind when she departed RPI to take another head coaching job elsewhere.
Greene’s credentials are impressive—he had charge of the women’s program at Division-II Bridgeport for two years and led the Golden Bears of Western New England before that. In both cases, he took ailing teams and built them back into respectable programs.
The challenge at Rensselaer is different, though, and he has some very large shoes to fill: Rybczyk was the UCAA Coach of the Year last season, and she has more wins than any other coach in Red Hawks’ history with a 98-56 career record in six seasons. RPI is coming off a stellar season in which the team won the conference championship, appeared in its first-ever NCAA tournament, and set a school record for wins with a 23-5 season mark.
Greene said there is some pressure to succeed but notes that he seems to be a good fit for the Red Hawks. He has lots of respect for Rybczyk and favors the same up-tempo style of play that has been the hallmark of the program for several years.
Using their superior speed and conditioning to wear down the opponents is going to be a primary strategy for the Red Hawks. They lost only three players from last year’s team, but all of them were forwards, leaving the team a bit short of post players this season—if an opposing team can slow things down and get into the paint frequently, Rensselaer may have some problems.
At guard, on the other hand, the team is stacked—the Red Hawks have five guards returning, and several freshmen also play that position. Greene expects to rotate players in frequently to keep them fresh and to present a different look to the opponents, although veterans Holly Neiweem and Karen Wood will certainly see plenty of action, and Kristin Kaczynski, last year’s UCAA Rookie of the Year, is expected to put in a lot of minutes as well.
Up front, the Red Hawks will be led by senior Melissa Coppola—RPI’s leading scorer last season—and junior Jo Alexander. Caitlin Vestal, the likely favorite for the fifth starting spot, is injured, leaving the remaining returning forwards, Kelly Choppy and Jacqueline Ferrari, vying with some of the incoming freshmen for the position.
Skill, conditioning, and experience are all huge factors, but the biggest asset the team has, according to Greene, is a supportive, positive attitude. The players, he said, are great students, great athletes, and overall great people who know what they want and how to get it, and that is what drew him to the school.
"It’s a privilege to be here," he said.
