SAU Women’s Basketball Gets a New Head Coach
As the 2022-2023 season came to a close the SAU Women’s basketball team had some questions about what the future of the program might look like with the sudden leaving of previous head coach Krista Van Hauen.
During the remainder of the season, athletic director Mike Holmes stepped into the program to be the interim head coach until a new one could be found. The search process started after the team’s season was over, and a new head coach was announced on the SAU Athletics website on April 21, 2023, about the new hire.
The new hire is head Coach Zac Exume, who has a long list of experience coming into the position here at SAU. When talking to Coach Exume about his experiences, he says that “Originally it started when I wanted to get into coaching, so I ended up coaching at my former high school first. I was there as an assistant track coach. So I started there and coached them for the season and ended up getting second place coach in the 4 by 100-meter team. Then that same year, I worked with the Delaware State University Men’s basketball program. After I graduated, I worked with the Miami University men’s basketball team and did that for two years. During my second year there, I also coached at a local high school there, where I did boy’s basketball. Then after graduating, I got a job with Cincinnati Christian University, which is an NAIA of Cincinnati. Worked my way up from a volunteer assistant to a top assistant, then I coached at a high school in Cincinnati called Purcell Marian. Then after leaving that job, I coached at Division 2, Arkansas Monticello. Then coached at Thomas University, then got the job here.”
With Exume coming in with a large resume, it will help this team, especially knowing that he has coached at multiple different levels. While at his last University, an article put out by Steve Batterson with the Quad Cities Times, stated that, “…Exume recruited an entire roster of players just weeks before the school year started…”.
Now with Exume here at SAU, he doesn’t have to recruit a full roster again with the team returning nine women out of the 13 women roster. With returning some of the talents, Exume says that “It’s tremendous because one, they already have chemistry with one another, which is huge. They are familiar with one another’s games. They already have experience under their belt playing, not only college basketball but also playing in this conference. This will allow us to hit the ground faster and then when it comes to recruiting I’m not recruiting an entire roster I’m just recruiting to fill some of those weaknesses that I saw from last year’s film so that we can be a stronger team going into this season.”
Also with most of the roster, Exume is willing to work with these players during the time he has during the off-season in order to know what he’s looking for when recruiting. When talking to Exume about the returning roster, he stated that “We just had the freshman of the year in the conference, so that’s definitely one that I am curious to see. I saw it on film, but now in person, what are some things that really stand out that made [Abby Wolter] such a difficult person to guard, but then [also] how can we get you to the next level? Some of the others, like Olivia [Harter], who has a shooting background that she had at her high school. That was something that she didn’t really feel comfortable with this past season, so how do I tap into that and get it out of her. And a person like Elly who has some post background, how do I get that out of her so that she’s playing to her strength, where she is comfortable within the confines of the offense? I could name them all, but those are just some examples of some of the reasons why I’m excited to work with them to try to get some of the things out of them that they feel like they should be able to do now give them those opportunities to do just that.”
With the returning experience, it will help Exume get to know more about the program, as well as the players. And with him coming in just before the end of the academic year, Exume mentioned that the timing of coming in, “[It] actually makes it a little tougher because there is only so much time left in the semester to be able to actually work with them. [But] my number one goal is to get to know the players. I don’t wanna just know them as players, I want to know them as people, so I spend a lot of time talking to them and just asking them where they are from family background, and stuff of that sort.”
Getting to know the players is one of Exume’s goals, but that is just one of the things that Exume wants to work on with the team. Some of the other goals he mentioned going into the end of the year are, “Of course finishing off the tail end of the roster, so I know exactly what my team will be for next year. The other one will be getting camps going. There is a camp I wanna do in the month of June and one in the month of July, so there are a lot of things I need to do to make sure I get that set up and ready to go. I was getting more familiar with the department resources on campus. It is always huge for me to get to know the counseling center, the tutoring center, and all of those resources for me to be able to rely on for the next school year. The biggest thing is putting together a comprehensive workout for them to do over the summer that will help them prepare for preseason conditioning and of course the season. Also putting together a travel list this summer for recruiting events.” Having these things available will help Exume know what to expect going forward to get to know the area a little better.
As far as goals for the team, Exume says, “Well number one goal is not really something I can really measure, but to build the team chemistry as much as possible. Research even shows on the women’s side, a team that gets along really well off the court has a lot more chances to be successful on the court. So team bonding, things like that nature, and volunteer experience that we will do in the fall, will be things that I hope will help the team gel. I like to break the season into quarters, so our goal is to master each quarter, so looking at games of four at a time and our goal is to get all three or four of those games where we are consistently improving from one game to the next.”
With all the experience and goals for the year ahead, Exume is ready to take charge of the program. We would like to wish him good luck with this new endeavor.
