Photo by Jason Luong | The Signal
The Georgia State women’s basketball team took a few steps back last season after only winning 10 games, which was down from 13 the previous year.
Sophomore Astaja Tyghter thought one of the major reasons for a disappointing season was due to poor defense.
“Defense was one of the major reasons that we struggled, and we need to be better defensively,” Tyghter said.
The Panthers gave up an average of 71.3 points per game, which is up from the 67.7 average points allowed the previous year. Tyghter added that the team has focused on getting more stops so far this summer.
“We’ve been doing more defensive drills and working on different defensive sets to help us improve our overall team defense,” she said.
The Panthers return 12 players, and have set some big goals for themselves.
“We have high expectations for ourselves this season. We want to win the Sun Belt Championship, and make the NCAA tournament,” Tyghter said.
As for Tyghter, the 5-foot-10 forward averaged 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game as a freshman. She has also been working to improve on some of the things that she struggled with last season.
“I have to be more vocal on the floor and be more of a leader,” she said. “I also have to crash the boards more, and work on penetrating to create for me and my teammates.”
Georgia State athletics are on the rise, and the Lady Panthers are working very hard to be apart of that.
