Doshia Woods writes poetry and has an English degree in her back pocket, but that doesn’t mean the Denver head coach shies away from the numbers. The second-year coach built an aggressive, free-flowing offense in her debut season that saw the Pioneers shoot three pointers and attack the basket at some of the highest rates in the country. 
 
Behind it all? In part, simple math.
 
“I actually have a degree in English, but I know basic numbers, and three’s are worth more than two’s, and that really is an important part of that,” she said with a laugh. “We’ve dubbed ourselves ‘Longball Elite,’ but really we just play a fast-paced game that everyone can feel comfortable either shooting three’s or attacking the space when necessary.” 
 
That offensive approach translated on the court last year. Despite losing three starters, the Pioneers scored over 70 points per game and got to the free throw line on 24 percent of their possessions, the best mark in the country according to herhoopstats.com. They weren’t hesitant to let it fly from deep either, something Woods said is a focus in practice. 
 
Woods wants her players to feel that they have the green light if they have an open shot, whether they are a guard or post. That faith trickled down to junior forward Uju Ezeudu, who took a leap forward last year as a sophomore in DU’s high-octane attack.
 
“I got confidence not only from myself, but from Coach Woods,” Ezeudu said. “I think her allowing me to play freely allowed me to not second guess a lot of the shots I was taking, and my teammates also believing in me, it just instilled confidence from all areas of the team.” 
 
The preseason All-Summit Second Teamer poured in 15.2 points and did so in an efficient manner, making nearly half (49 percent) of her attempts from the field. Ezeudu was relentless, attacking the glass against frequently taller players and acting as the interior hub of the Pioneers’ attack. That included a career-high, 32-point effort against Kansas City in late February that she says stands out not because of her gaudy point total but because the team won.
 
Ezeudu along with fellow junior and preseason All-Summit Second Team pick Meghan Boyd (15.3 ppg, 3.1 apg) made up the core of Woods’ debut team, one that she was forced to navigate through the pandemic’s uncertain waters as a first-year coach,
 
A first-year coach in unprecedented circumstances
Like all teams, DU had to deal with a truncated offseason and the Summit’s back-to-back league scheduling, as well as having a pair of home games with South Dakota State cancelled in late January due to the league’s COVID-19 protocols. Woods, who had spent the previous 10 years as an assistant at Tulane, said she simply didn’t know enough to get worked up by the squeeze the pandemic put on head coaches. 
 
While an offseason approaching normality has made her understand how crazy last year was, in some ways she felt it worked in her favor as a first-year coach. 
 
“In some ways, I honestly enjoyed some of the restrictions,” she said. “Being a first-year head coach, I didn’t know what I didn’t know but I talked to mentors who were frustrated about certain restrictions or things we weren’t able to do. I didn’t know any better, so I felt it made it a little easier to get a chance to focus on the team and know them better.” 
 
That included a focus on mental health, something Woods said is going to be a pillar of the culture she’s trying to build at DU. Like all teams, she said the Pioneers struggled with the mental aspect of the pandemic, and she instituted a simple policy: if a player needed a mental health day all she needed to do was text Woods 30 minutes before practice. No questions asked, no punishment, no consequences. 
 
“We wanted to be able to set the tone that way, to let them know that obviously we want to build and win here, but that their mental health is still important,” Woods said.
 
On the court, the Pioneers went 7-16 (5-9) last year but won a pair of games in the season’s final weeks and got a big non-conference victory over Colorado, the program’s first over the Buffaloes in 10 years. This season they are projected to finish fifth in the Summit’s preseason poll, a rise that will likely be tied to continuing their aggressive offensive approach. Woods said that she wants her team to aim for 30 3-point attempts per game, something that can still be an adjustment as the Pioneers hoisted up just 17 in their opening night loss to Air Force. They then followed that up with 27 attempts in a win over Missouri S&T. 
 
The safe bet is the offense continuing to hum but Woods says the real improvement will need to come on the defensive end. 
 
“I think we’re going to be a tough team to guard because we have five people that can put the ball in the basket, even when we sub everyone we still have five people capable of scoring,” she said. “I don’t know if I have five people that really want to defend, but I’m excited to see those days when we’re clicking offensively and taking a little more pride in our defense.” 
 
That’s something Ezeudu echoed as a focus of hers over the offseason. 
 
“I wanted to add more to my game offensively, and try to become a better defender,” the junior forward said. “One of the struggles we had as a team was defensively, and getting stops. We’d score high points but then also allow the other team to score high points as well, so I’ve put an emphasis on talking on defense and getting my teammates involved.” 
 
Ezeudu and Boyd are joined by another returning starter in guard Anna Jackson, who is coming off a quality season herself (10.9 ppg, 39.4 3P%), as well as a pair of impact newcomers in Presbyterian College transfer forward Tess Santos and American transfer guard Indeyah Sanders. That group makes up the beginning of what Woods hopes is a long, successful tenure in the Mile High City.
 
Building something in a new home
There will be several built-in awkward moments every year for Woods at DU. It’s simply unavoidable when you played and coached at a fellow league program like Woods did. 
 
For Woods, that spot she knows all too well is Macomb, Ill. She suited up for Western Illinois and got her coaching start as an assistant with the Leathernecks from 2001-04. She said she thoroughly enjoyed her time in purple and gold and is a big fan of WIU coach JD Gravina and his program. But now? She said she joked with Gravina that she could maybe give him one tweet a semester praising his team. 
 
Of all the games she played and coached in Western Hall she never got a technical. That changed last February when Woods led the Pioneers against her alma mater in what was once her home gym. For the first time as an opposing coach in that building, she received a technical.
 
“I think it showed that as much pride as I had as a player there, I have just as much as a head coach at DU and that I’m competitive and want to win,” she said. “I support [Gravina] most nights, as long as we’re not playing them and their games don’t affect us.” 
 
The second-year head coach seems to have found a great place to finally build a program of her own after nearly two decades as an assistant. She talked to 9 News, the Denver NBC affiliate, in June about how as a black, gay and female coach, DU is the first place she feels her full self is accepted. 
 
“I haven’t wavered on my passion to build a culture here and develop something that will last,” Woods said. “Of course I want to win a lot of games, but we want to build a program that can sustain consistency and that takes time. So if I’m able to build that and today is better than yesterday, then we’ll be successful.”