At this time a year ago, the West Virginia State women's basketball team was struggling to do much offensively.
Through its first 10 games that year, it eclipsed 70 points just three times and went on to finish the season with nine games in which it did not score more than 60.
Now, a year later, with coach Charles Marshall at the helm, things have started to change a bit for the Yellow Jackets. Offense has been among the least of their worries as they currently sit at No. 3 nationally in scoring offense, scoring 93.8 points per game. They have scored at least 75 points every game and currently have five players averaging double figures - a year after having only two players average more than 10 points per game.
"Honestly, we preached going into the year that we wanted to score on people, but I didn't really think we'd be even close to what we're doing now quite yet," Marshall said. "It goes to show how hard this group is working and how good our leadership has been to see them pick everything up quickly."
West Virginia State went into its holiday break with a 5-5 record and averaging a staggering 104.6 points per game in its five victories. The Yellow Jackets have stepped up and answered the challenge Marshall issued to them when he arrived after serving as Glenville State's head coach.
He's always loved for his teams to play like that. When he was with the Pioneers, they were routinely one of the top scoring teams in the MEC and now he's tried to bring that same culture over to this Yellow Jackets team.
Of course, it hasn't all been perfect. Marshall has seen plenty of room for growth and some disappointment early on in his first campaign with WVSU. Three of the Yellow Jackets' five losses have come by less than 10 points.
"I've been very pleased, but it's been a little up and down. We've lost some really close, hard-fought games that if we do a couple little things we could have some more wins under our belt," Marshall said. "The girls that are healthy have done a great job of working though. They do what we ask of them and have made some great strides."
A big part of the initial growing pains that the Yellow Jackets have had to go through come from the fact that they have had to deal with injuries to a few players that the coaching staff believed could make an impact - something that has dealt a bit of a blow to the depth in the rotation for State.
But what it has done is throw some of its underclassmen into the fire early, putting them in position to get minutes in tough games - which could ultimately help them down the stretch.
"It's early on and some of these younger girls have seen it all which hopefully means they'll be prepared late in the season," Marshall said. "It can be a good thing - I'm hoping it will be anyway.
"This is all new to them. It's a new style, I'm new, and they've bought in completely. That's a huge positive for us."
Through everything, Marshall has been pleased with his team's will to keep pushing through the adversity they've faced in those first 10 games.
He attributes a lot of that to the leadership of the Yellow Jackets' upperclassmen like Shaelyn Shafer and Shae Hines.
"Shaelyn and Shae have been amazing leaders for this team," Marshall said. "They get the team going when the team is getting down a little bit or if they don't want to practice. As a coach, you can't ask for anyone better than that to lead the way for us."