Tempie optimistic about next season

Looking ahead to the 2015-16 Stanford women’s basketball season, assistant coach Tempie Brown is upbeat.

Fans can expect “a younger team, a quicker team,” Tempie said. She spoke briefly at a tailgate party for men’s and women’s basketball season ticket holders preceding a Stanford baseball game the afternoon of May 17.

Also speaking was men’s assistant coach Tim O’Toole.

Reflecting on the past year, Tempie said, “This season was very exciting. We had a great bunch of kids.”

Now she’s looking forward to working with the 10 returning players as well as the four promising freshmen-to-be. 

She noted that freshman forward Kaylee Johnson, sophomore guard Lili Thompson and sophomore forward Erica “Bird” McCall spent the weekend in Colorado Springs, Colo.,  for the 2015 USA Basketball Women’s Pan American Games and World University Games team trials.

At the end of the weekend, Bird was named to the 12-member WUG team that will compete in South Korea in July. “We’re looking for great things for her,” Tempie said.

Updating the condition of two sophomores, she said that guard Karlie Samuelson is improving after suffering a broken finger late in the Pac-12 season, and forward Kailee Johnson is rehabbing from “an ongoing injury. ... We could really use her,” Tempie said.

Returning players are working on skills and conditioning. The coaches can spend two hours a week with them.

In the meantime, the coaches are staying in contact with the incoming freshmen, who have been given workouts to follow before they arrive June 20. Summer school classes begin June 22.