Associate head coach Robyn Fralick sits in the Ashland women’s basketball team room on the second floor of Kates Gymnasium, staring at her MacBook.

Today is Wednesday. There is a game tommorow.

At the moment, Fralick is worried about Saturday, when the Eagles will play Ferris State.

Sarah DeShone is Ferris State’s best player. This was true last year, but it is especially true this year. She can create for her teammates and for herself. She is one of the best scorers in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Fralick’s job is to find out how DeShone scores. Then, she has to figure out the best way to stop her from scoring.

While DeShone is the player Fralick will focus on most, she also has to go through the same process with each of the Bulldogs’ other players.

She will watch film for about 20 hours over the course of the week, looking for any possible advantage the Eagles can gain. Then, she will boil down everything she finds into a four-to-five-page report.

This is called scouting. Fralick is quite good at it.

“She knows every single critical thing about every player,” sophomore guard Taylor Woods said. “It doesn’t matter if they play three minutes or they play the whole game. She’ll be able to tell you everything that they do. Every single time it’s been right.”

—

It was not by accident that Fralick ended up at Ashland. When the assistant coaching position opened up in 2008, AU head coach Sue Ramsey asked coaches she respects for names.

One of those coaches was Mark Ehlen—the all-time wins leader in the Mid-American Conference—who had just resigned from his position as the head coach at Toledo.

He recommended Fralick, who was only on his staff for one season (2007-08), but whom left quite an impression on the legendary coach.

Ehlen compared Fralick to Tina Langley, who was an assistant at Toledo and is now the associate head coach at Maryland.

“[Langley] is one of the best in the business,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey did not contact Fralick right away. In fact, it was Fralick’s name that popped up in Ramsey’s email inbox first.

Fralick was inquiring about a foreign basketball tour that she heard needed coaches.

“I’ll answer that if you let me know if you know what you’re doing next year,” was the response she got from Ramsey.

“I was kind of like, ‘who is this? What’s going on?’” Fralick said.

Nonetheless, she agreed to come to Ashland for an interview.

“That was five years ago, and I am absolutely thrilled that we have the relationship that we have,” Ramsey said.

• • •

Last season, as Ashland marched to its best season ever—33 straight wins and a berth in the national championship game—there was a theme that developed in postgame press conferences.

Ramsey and her players thanked the Lord, they heaped compliments on each other (never themselves) and they made sure to mention their secret weapon: coach Fralick and her scouting reports.

“She does a tremendous job with scouts,” Woods said. “It’s unlike anything I ever had in high school. I hear about other colleges too and ours are way better.”

Fralick likens scouting to writing a research paper. She starts with as much information as she can find on a team and funnels it down so she is left with only the most relevant pieces of information.

First, she prints off the other team’s cumulative stats and box scores from each game. She is looking for patterns: leading scorers, field goal percentages, turnovers, etc.

Next, she finds film of them playing against other teams.

She watches three to four games of each team the Eagles play. Over the course of a season, that could mean up to 120 basketball games, not including tournaments, which could add up to an extra 36.

And she doesn’t just watch them; she analyzes every little thing that happens in them.

As she watches a game between Ferris State and Kentucky State, Fralick’s eyes catch things that even the most avid basketball fans never think about.

For example, when DeShone touches her shoulder while dribbling up the court, she is calling a play. Over the course of the game, a team might call dozens of plays. Fralick must know all of them.

“A lot of teams don’t know our plays,” Woods said. “You can just tell. But we usually know the majority of everyone else’s plays.”

Another thing Fralick has a keen eye for: ball screens.

Every team the Eagles play uses ball screens differently. Knowing how to defend them could be the difference between a player being held scoreless or dropping 20 points.

Of course, not everything she finds out will end up on the scouting report. In fact, most of it won’t.

• • •

Getting a Division II assistant coach to stay at one school for five years is rare. Nobody is more aware of this than Ramsey.

What Fralick found the first time she stepped on campus, however, was much more than a just a job.

Ramsey loves a good story, and this is one of her favorites.

Though she won’t take all the credit, there is a twinkle in her eye as she recounts the day that Fralick met her husband, Tim Fralick.

“I asked our men’s assistant coach at the time if he would give Robyn a tour of the town of Ashland,” Ramsey said. “It wasn’t as much for her to see the town as it was for her to connect with someone that I had the upmost respect for.”

Tim and Robyn were married Aug. 5, 2010 in Traverse City, Mich. Tim is now the head boys’ basketball coach at Ashland High School.

The two have a unique relationship that—from November until March at least—revolves around their shared love for the game of basketball.

“Some people wonder, I think, how you can have two coaches because it can be so consuming when you’re in season,” she said. “I think that’s a real positive because we both understand each other’s mindset and schedule during season.”

• • •

The beauty of Fralick’s scouting reports is in their simplicity.

On the first page is a list of facts about the team: overall and conference records in a small box in the upper left corner next to a box with points per game, turnovers, field goal percent, 3-point field goal percent and rebounds per game in the top right.

Underneath are three more boxes: three-to-five facts on the other team’s offense, three-to-five facts on the defense and three-to-five “Ashland Keys to Victory.”

The rest of the scout consists of snippets of information about each player.

“There is not a whole lot of information, but there is enough information that our kids feel knowledgeable and prepared,” Ramsey said. “That’s a fine line.”

For the players, scouting starts with a film session. With the scouting report in hand, they watch clips of each player—maybe as many as 15 for an important player like DeShone and just a few for bench players.

Then, they take what they learned onto the practice court and make sure they are able to put it into action.

All of the preparation means nothing if the players are unable or unwilling to commit what is in the scouting report to memory and recognize when it needs to be applied in the game.

Ramsey and Fralick agree that this year’s team—along with last year’s—is among the best they have ever seen at that process.

“That’s the beautiful thing,” Ramsey said. “You can’t be too analytical because it’s still a game.”

When it comes to playing the game, the Eagles are the best team in the country.

• • •

Ashland women’s basketball is a unique team with a unique leader. Over the last 18 years, Ramsey has molded the Eagles into a reflection of her own principles.

She puts her players first at all times and never loses sight of the big picture.

It is the perfect learning environment for a young assistant coach. Perhaps that is why Fralick has stayed so long. At the beginning of last season, Fralick became the associate head coach.

“That’s my way of saying to her that it is our program,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey has a real passion for mentoring, and Fralick has become one of her biggest mentees. Each year, she heaps more responsibility on Fralick’s shoulders.

This year, it was a move from coaching to the guards—which Fralick has done since she got here—to coaching the posts.

The change came after Shannon Sword, an assistant coach last season, left to pursue a teaching career. Jennifer Bushby, who was at Ohio Dominican last season, stepped in.

Along with coaching the guards, Bushby is also a large part of scouting. The transition has been seamless.

“One thing coach Ramsey does a really good job of is empowering her assistants,” Fralick said.

Of course, one might wonder how much longer such a great basketball mind wants to remain an assistant.

Fralick, however, hasn’t given it much thought.

“I’m really happy where I’m at right now and Tim’s really happy where he is right now,” Fralick said. “One day, I would like to be a head coach. How that comes about or how that fits into life’s plan I don’t know, but we’ll see.”

• • •

‘Preparation trumps pressure’ is a motto that the team has adopted this season.

There is no doubt that there is pressure. A preseason No. 1 national ranking and constant reminders—flyers, t-shirts, standing ovations during player introductions—of how excited people are will do that.

Every team Ashland plays will have had the date marked on its calendar since the start of the season.

To combat that pressure, Ashland turns to the scouting report. It gives structure to the chaos.

But what is the scout on Fralick?

Perhaps senior forward Kari Daugherty, last year’s National Player of the Year, sums it up best.

“When the clock is winding down and she’s helping coach Ramsey call a play or draw up a quick set, we trust her for what she’s doing because she knows the game so well and she wants us to do as well as we ever have,” she said.

It might not take a scouting report to figure out that, in a season that could come down to a single possession, trust and preparation might make all the difference. But it sure helps.