Andrea Bills, the new assistant coach of the Sacramento State women’s basketball team, along with head coach Dan Muscatell, associate head coach Jamie Craighead and the rest of the team are preparing for a new season and a fresh start after last year’s forgettable six-win-campaign that was defined by injuries and the frustration of defeat.

Shooting guard Charday Hunt relives some of the futility. “I think it was that we had a really young team; none of us had ever really played with each other before. It’s really hard to bring together a whole bunch of random girls and expect them to make something big happen,” Hunt said.

Bills, however, is looking to change that. In her playing career, she started out at the University of Oregon and was recruited by none other than her current boss, Dan Muscatell. From there she moved through the Women’s National Basketball Association’s pre-draft camp in 2005 to playing internationally in five different countries over the span of three seasons. During her last season, she played for the Lithuanian team Arvi Marijampole of the Lietuvos Moteru Krepsinio Lyga, where she led the team in scoring and rebounding. That experience is one of the key elements that Bills is looking to bring with her in hopes that it will help to change the atmosphere.

“I’ve played against a lot of different players, people that play in the WNBA, just playing at a lot of different levels. So I’ve gained knowledge in my game. Hopefully when I go out and coach I know that I will be able to bring that to the court and teach them what I know,” Bills said.

Muscatell has faith in his new assistant as well, although when he first recruited her as a player he didn’t see the possibility of coaching in her future.

“She was very, very quiet and has a wonderful heart, and has really bloomed and blossomed, but I would have never seen this path for her then,” Muscatell said.

But he said that through the invaluable experience she’s gained, he is more than happy to have her as part of his coaching staff. “Through the rigors of being a Division I player, moving on to the professional ranks, her coming to an understanding about herself that this is a game that she really cares deeply about, all of that kind of blossomed into why she’s here today,” Muscatell said.

With her being part of the team now, it is easier to take one more step forward in forgetting last season and focusing on the future. While the official season doesn’t start until Nov. 7, the team is already conditioning to prepare for this season. Part of the way it is preparing is by not only doing new and physically exhausting workouts, but by adopting a fresh and more positive mindset.

“I feel like if we get a better start this year, win a few games, it will boost our confidence and make us want to win more and win more,” she said. “Making the Big Sky tournament is a huge goal for us, and then not only to make the tournament, but to hopefully get into the tournament championship game, and even getting a shot at the NCAA tournament.”

While these goals may seem lofty for a team that last season finished with 22 losses out of its 28 games, Bills doesn’t see it as impossible but as more of a challenge to herself and her players.

“We’re a program that’s developing. It’s going to take hard work and will be tough day in and day out, but as long as we stick with it, we should be fine,” Bills said.

Though it is not uncommon for former players to take positions coaching, enough can never be said about attitude entering a new profession. While Bills is now entering a different aspect of her basketball career, she remembers what it was like being a new player, in a new system, in a new city and she has some words for those who are now in the shoes she used to wear.

“You come in and you’re doing workouts that you’ve never done before at a level that you’ve never done it at before, but as long as you stick with it, it will get easier and it will pay off in the end,” Bills said.

Matt Rascher can be reached at [email protected]