One win does not define a basketball team. One moment is not capable of capturing an entire season.

But when you win as many games as the Independence Community College Women's basketball team has these past two seasons, the victories and happy moments can start to blur together. Despite that, Head Women's Coach Jim Turgeon has done a great job at keeping things in perspective. I was able to ask him what his favorite moment was this season. 

"On sophomore night, playing Butler with a chance to win a conference championship," Coach Turgeon replied. "With the score really close at halftime. To be able to do that, and then to have to play them again a week later in the second round of conference playoffs. They were picked to win our conference, so they had to be the best #9 seed in the country. It wasn't so much a game, but a week. To win a conference championship with a win over Butler, and then a week later to beat them in the conference tournament. For the girls to work so hard and stick together and win a conference championship says a lot about our coaching staff and our players."

Multiple all conference players and an All American as well, showed that this team had tons of individual talent. But coming together to capture the regular season conference title (and winning 24 games along the way) shows just how focused and together this team was.

"When we put this team together," Coach Turgeon said. "We thought we had a chance to be pretty good. It's one thing to think that, and another to actually go out and do it."

"We started working on it at the beginning of the year," Coach Turgeon continued. "The things you need to do to be a good teammate. We read the book The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy (by Jon Gordon), as a team and had each player take a part and explain their section of the book and relate it to our team. And every time our season got off course a little bit, we went back to that. It's a long season, especially for college basketball, you go through 2 semesters, you'll go off a little bit."

No team is perfect, but the way this squad came together gave the Independence community something to be proud of. A lot of wins, recognition at the national level, and sophomores moving on to play at the university level shines brightly, no matter how the season ends. 

But it won't just be the on court moments that Coach Turgeon will remember when these players have graduated.

"There were just really good quality people on this team," Coach Turgeon said. "They were very serious on the basketball court, but this group of girls understood that we can have fun off the court and still be respectful. This team had really good maturity to be able to handle that and I'm probably going to miss the stuff that happened off the court more than anything. Funny stuff happens, sad stuff happens, serious stuff happens and this group was a good group to get to know and go through the season with."

After two years, a lot of wins, and a regular season and conference tournament title, how does Coach Turgeon get ready for next year?

By reloading and preparing himself and his staff for whatever college basketball can throw at them.

 "We're losing 6 of our top 7 scorers," Coach Turgeon pointed out. "Valentina (Ojeda) is coming back. So that's a good start, with Valentina. We've got some girls off the bench with good attitudes to build around. We're working hard in recruiting to bring in the same kinds of girls we've had this past year. Maybe even have a chance to be a bit better. We'll be younger and more inexperienced but I think we'll be talented."