At Levien, all-male practice squad helps women's basketball prepare

In his first year at Columbia, Tucker Cain was a tight end on the football team. Now a senior, he’s a member of the women’s basketball team.

Cain, a senior, is one of eight men who comprise the all-male practice squad for the women’s team. The squad comes to the women’s team’s practices across the week, simulating scouting reports and providing an extra set of athletes for the women to play against.

“It gives us a chance to compete against a group that can really focus on what the other team is doing, so that we’re not having to try and learn the other team’s plays and things like that,” head women’s basketball coach Paul Nixon said.

“After a few weeks, they get used to each other’s styles, so they want to bring in fresh blood in a sense,” senior David Plotkin said.

The unfamiliarity with the practice squad has been an effective strategy for the women.

“You’re not so used to them, and they’re not so used to you, so you’re reacting, you’re paying attention, you’re having to read what they’re going to do,” junior center Sabaah Jordan said. “It’s a lot more unpredictable, and I think that that’s a really realistic game-like situation. No matter how much you scout someone, and no matter how much they scout you, you have to react and adjust when you get into a game, so it really does help you prepare.”

At practices when the scouting report is complete, the practice squad will take 15 minutes before beginning to take itself apart, “learn a couple of their plays, and try to run them during practice,” Cain said.

“In some cases they’ll even tell us how to play to simulate each of the players, like ‘You should shoot a lot of threes’ or ‘You should play very aggressive defense,’” Plotkin said.

The practice squad takes some of the pressure off of the women, who in past practice scrimmages would have to alternate between the mindsets of playing for Columbia and playing for the opponent.

“Everybody can focus on guarding them and not so much simulating other players. You can be yourself more often,” junior guard Taylor Ball said.

Role-playing a college basketball team is no easy feat, junior Michael Laracuente said.

“It’s definitely extremely tiring, when they’re running their offenses and they want us to play hard D, and we’re just like playing defense for 20 minutes—it’s just exhausting,” he added.

“We started off really rough,” Cain added. “We were throwing a lot of balls away and that wasn’t good for them. We threw the ball out of bounds every other possession because we just didn’t know what each other was doing. But as we get better from playing, they actually get a better look from us, too.”

But players on the team and on the practice squad acknowledged that the athleticism of the men makes them worthy opponents for the women.

“It’s good to play against that level of athleticism so you can really prepare yourself for the most challenging scenario possible,” Ball said.

“They’re better at basketball than we are, but we’re more athletic, so it kinds of evens out,” Cain said. “So it’s good practice for them—and we’re also getting a lot better as we go. I think we’ll be much more competitive moving forward.”

At 6-foot-3-and-half, Cain is taller than every player on the team with the exception of 6-foot-4 sophomore center Nicole Santucci.

“I guess my function is that I’m taller and stronger than anyone that they’re actually going to play against,” Cain said. “So it’s good practice to go against that pretty much everyday.”

Alexander Isik, a sophomore, said, “Being taller and, in my case specifically, I have really long arms, so being able to teach them to shoot over people who are bigger than them” helps out the team. “That’s why we’re there, to provide some bigger guys to play against,” he added.

Nixon said having the men around also “saves on the wear and tear of our athletes. If they’re not always banging against each other all the time, then that can certainly help over the course of a long season.”

The squad is especially beneficial for the women who play in the post—the often-crowded zone directly in front of the basket.

“Because we have guys who are bigger and stronger than them, so they don’t always have to be battling against each other,” senior captain Melissa Shafer said.

With a laugh, Laracuente described the practice squad as figurative “punching bags” for the women’s team, a group of players who can get a little “beaten up” without it mattering come game day. But in a drill at Wednesday’s practice, Laracuente served as a literal punching bag.

“They were going for layups, and they were like, ‘Oh, give him some contact.’ So they gave me a pad … and one of the girls goes up and she just swings her arm up, and I catch an elbow right in the nose and I start bleeding immediately,” he said.

Last year, Cain, Isik, Plotkin, and Brandon Yu, a sophomore, took an intramural basketball class taught by Shanna Cook, an assistant coach for the women’s team, and she urged them to come to a team practice this semester. They did, dragging along a few friends, and the squad was reborn after a three-year absence.

Laracuente said that their schedule is flexible, with the men showing up to between two to five practice a week.

“It’s kind of as much as you can devote to it, because they practice five, six days a week,” he said. “And we can come essentially whenever they practice.”

Plotkin said that, because he came to practice about four or five days a week, the coaches asked him to take on managerial duties as well.

The men on the squad come from very different athletic backgrounds. Cain was the captain of his high school basketball team, while Yu played in a recreational basketball league. Laracuente played basketball in high school and said he “probably could have played D-III” before dropping the sport for tennis. Isik plays on the club ultimate frisbee team for the Lions. But they all share “a very strong interest in the game and just really love to play,” Nixon said.

Isik said he loves attending practices because of the respect he has for the women who ultimately take to the court.

“It’s a varsity team, and these girls put so much effort into their sport every single day, and they’re asking me to be there to help them out,” Isik said. “As often as possible, I’m going to be there to help them out. If I don’t have class, if I don’t have prior commitments, I’m going to be there.”