University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball coach Jim Foster doesn’t know much about the personnel of the Mocs’ season-opening opponent, Rutgers.
But he does know the coach of the Scarlet Knights very well and therefore knows the team’s style and what to expect during Friday’s 2 p.m. game in Piscataway, N.J.
He’s very familiar with C. Vivian Stringer, one of two coaches (Foster is the other) to log 200 wins at three different schools, having done so at NCAA Division II member Cheyney State, Iowa and Rutgers. Foster is not familiar with many players on the roster for Rutgers, which had two players selected in the WNBA draft after last season and had its leading returning scorer, Tyler Scaife (17.2 points per game), announce she was sitting out this season with a medical redshirt.
Foster said Stringer coached at Cheyney around the same time Hall of Fame coach John Chaney – who went on to lead Temple to multiple NCAA tournament appearances – was heading up the men’s team at the Pennsylvania school, and Foster said Stringer and Chaney are a lot alike and have a similar philosophy toward basketball.
“It doesn’t make preparing difficult at all when you know the head coach,” Foster said earlier this week. “I’ve known Vivian for 39 years. I know how her teams play, whether it’s Cheyney State, Iowa or Rutgers.