Tornado watch in Fla.
Butler hoops star Bresnahan signs with Seminoles
By John Enrietto
Eagle Sports Editor
BUTLER TWP — It's official: Olivia Bresnahan is heading south.
The
"It's exciting for the family, the program, the school — everybody,"
The daughter of Ed and Toni Bresnahan of
She made a visit to the campus in June and took her official visit in October.
"Everything fit perfectly for me," said Bresnahan, who is undecided
on a major. "I fit in well with my future teammates and I love how
energetic and enthusiastic the coaching staff is.
"They play an up-tempo, up and down the floor style of basketball, too.
The whole conference does and I love that."
Florida State won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship last year with a
12-2 record and was 26-8 overall. The Seminoles were ranked 12th in the nation
and have been to the NCAA Tournament in each of the past five years.
Coach Sue Semrau has 205 wins in 12 seasons at Florida State, including 114 in
the past five years.
"(Bresnahan's) recruiting class will be among the top five
nationally," Semrau said. "We've been good, but we're trying to get
better."
Bresnahan enters her senior season with 988 career points. She averaged 18.7
points, 10.2 rebounds, six assists and three steals per game as a junior.
"She's a complete player," Butler coach Dorothea Epps said.
"Olivia makes the players on the court with her better. She doesn't have
an unselfish bone in her body.
"Those traits, combined with her work ethic, made her so attractive as a
recruit."
Bresnahan was recruited by schools up and down the East Coast and as far west
as Oklahoma and Texas.
"Olivia's skill set and passion for the game at both ends of the floor
made her such an attractive recruit," Semrau said. "She plays so hard
in the defensive end and that's where championship teams are built."
"When you get handwritten letters from coaches, they're pretty serious
about wanting you," Toni Bresnahan said. "She got those letters from
Oklahoma, Texas, and many others.
"She was getting 20 letters a day in the mail at times."
Epps said she recognized Bresnahan's Division I college basketball potential as
early as her junior high years.
"Olivia's court awareness for a junior high player was amazing," Epps
said. "She could see the floor so well and always hit the open girl.
"Even at that age, she was never caught standing around during practice.
She was always doing something to work on her game. She saw the court in junior
high better than high school kids did.
"I told her parents back then that Olivia had a chance to be one of the
best players ever to come out of Butler — and she is," Epps added.
Semrau described Bresnahan as a "connect-the-dots player. She makes
everybody better."
Ever since her parents put her in the YMCA youth basketball program, Bresnahan
has taken to the game.
She played on the North Main Christian School sixth-grade basketball team — for
four years.
"There weren't a lot of girls in that school, so Olivia started playing
for the team in third grade," her mother said.
Bresnahan has been playing AAU basketball since sixth grade. One of her AAU
teammates, Tay'ler Mingo from Regina, Ohio, also is headed to Florida State as
a point guard.
"I'm being looked at more as a No. 2 guard who occasionally plays the
point," Bresnahan said. "They play four-out and one-in down there, so
there's a bunch of guards on the floor all the time.
"Tay'ler and I visited the school together. We're excited about going down
there together."
Bresnahan doesn't expect to be redshirted her freshman year.
"I'm not even thinking about that," she said. "Freshmen earn
their playing time at Florida State, just like I had to earn my playing time at
Butler as a freshman. I'm going to try to do that again. I want to play. No one
wants to sit.
"I'm working on my pull-up shot to go with driving to the basket. I'm
shooting 50 free throws every day after practice. I want to be a complete
player."
Semrau refuted any possibility of Bresnhan being redshirted.
"No way. That girl's gonna play," she said. "We keep our roster
small so we can get our players on the floor. Olivia is so versatile and we
like having two point guards on the floor at the same time.
"Tay'ler and her may be our backcourt. Your guard play is vital in
championship-level play."
Florida State has 11 players on its 2009-10 roster and will have 12 players
next season.