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PROVO — In all candor and with a serious tone, Lauren Gustin admits she was shocked when longtime coach Jeff Judkins announced his retirement at the close of the 2021-22 season.
Just like that, the only BYU coach Gustin has ever known — the one that recruited her in high school and recruited her again when she opted to leave her original destination at Idaho, through her transfer to Salt Lake Community College, and the one that helmed the program for over 20 years — was gone.
Did Gustin ever think about leaving along with him? Maybe so, but she only entertained those thoughts until she met new coach Amber Whiting.
"If I'm being completely honest, it took me a couple of days to accept it and be ready for this change," Gustin said during a media day event Wednesday at the Marriott Center. "But as soon as I met and got to know coach Whiting and we got into practice, I was happy and pleased with her right away."
Whiting's surprise hire following a run to the Idaho 4A championship run shocked many in college basketball, including several of her own players at BYU, and led to the defection of former Cougars star Shaylee Gonzales to Texas.
But the BYU alumna whose husband Trent also played basketball on the men's team and who raised two Division I basketball players themselves has taken to her new role with surprising ease as she's worked her new squad into conditioning through summer workouts and the first weeks of practice ahead of the 2022-23 season.
Ease is probably the wrong word; nothing about a Whiting practice is easy, she admits.
"They're learning me, and learning that I don't half anything. I won't accept anything but 100%," Whiting said. "Then when we step on the court, it's game time. We'll always run a drill until they like it and give me full effort."
Known for her toughness and an emphasis on defense in the high school and AAU basketball circuit, Whiting has brought that same grinding mentality to BYU, a school that has gone toe-to-toe with Gonzaga for years as a dominant program in the West Coast Conference.
One year before moving up to the Big 12, Whiting's Cougars want to be known for the same thing she's preached her entire career: defense and toughness.
It starts on the recruiting trail where the former 4A Coach of the Year by the Idaho Statesman who went 70-37 over four seasons at Burley High has already begun assembling a dynamic class that includes four-star daughter Amari and Gatorade Nevada player of the year Ali'a Matavao in the 2023 recruiting class.
But the attributes Whiting expects out of her recruits is the same as the ones she's trying to instill into her current players, said the former junior college All-American at Snow College who also played at Weber State before graduating from BYU in 2001.
"I'm trying to find the girls who fit our culture first, but are dogs on defense," Whiting said. "Anyone I've committed, we make sure that they can play defense first. They need to stick their nose in on defense, and do all the extra things that aren't the most glamorous."
In games, that means defense. In practice, that also means conditioning — lots of running and drills played out to the fullest extent.
By the start of the summer, Whiting was already leaving her mark on the program — for better or for worse, any of her players' lungs might say.
"I think Amber fit into the head coach spot quickly," Gustin said. "She's transitioned well, and it's made it more comfortable for everyone else.
"Even in the summer, she had a really good presence already. A lot of people don't really give her credit, being a high school coach. But she's stepped into her role quickly. From the start, she asserted herself on the program, and was like, 'let's do this.'"
Gustin was the only All-West Coast Conference preseason pick from BYU by league coaches, who tabbed the Cougars to finish third in the conference behind Gonzaga and Portland. Perhaps that's understandable for a team that lost Gonzales, as well as departing seniors Paisley Harding, Maria Albiero, Tegan Graham and Sara Hamson.
Gustin, who starred at nearby Salem Hills High before a collegiate career that brought her back to Provo after brief stops in Moscow and Salt Lake, thinks the Cougars can do better in their final year in the conference. A return trip to the NCAA Tournament is "definitely one of our goals," she said.
"I think we have the talent and the coaching ability to get there," added the 6-foot-1 junior who averaged 11.3 points and 12.6 rebounds per game. "We've just got to play together. We're a whole different team from last year, but we're still going to be a good team."
To get there, they'll need to replace roughly 86% of the offensive production they lost from a year ago — huge portions of which came from Gonzales and Harding, who averaged 17.3 and 12.3 points per game, respectively.
Whiting singled out former East High star Nani Falatea and New Zealand native Ari Mackey-Williams as guards looking to shoulder more of the offensive load, as well as fellow Kiwi-born Kaylee Smiler, who will miss the season opener Nov. 8 at Colorado State but should be healthy after.
Gustin also added to the group Emma Calvert, the 6-foot-4 former Fremont High star and former four-star recruit by ESPN who played AAU basketball for Whiting who averaged 4.6 points and 2.3 rebounds off the bench a year ago as a freshman.
"Emma's great to play with," Gustin said. "She can also play the four; she's a sneaky good shooter. But she's a really big presence inside, and I think it will be fun to play with her, going in and out, and when they have to respect her shot outside it will open up more opportunities for me."
The first look at the 2022-23 BYU women's basketball team comes Oct. 27 in an exhibition game against Westminster. The home opener is scheduled for Nov. 12 against Montana State, followed by Oklahoma three days later.
