Patrick Reusse: Great Scots! Coach leads a big Mac rebound

This was the condition of women's basketball at Macalester: Ellen Thompson went 5-17 in the MIAC in her second season (2006-07) and was named by her peers as the conference's coach of the year.

The Scots opened the 2004-05 season with six losses by an average margin of 40 points. The rest of the schedule was cancelled because of a minimum of players and the inability to compete.

Janine Ruth resigned as coach in the spring. The Scots' neighbor to the west, St. Thomas, also started a search for a coach after Tricia Dornisch's resignation.

Thompson was a Tommies assistant and was entrenched in that school's winning tradition. As Ellen Hanson, she was a forward and the captain of the Tommies' 1991 national champions. She also would marry Scott Thompson, the MIAC's men's player of the year for the Tommies in 1990.

Ellen badly wanted to coach the Tommies. She was considered for the job, before athletic director Steve Fritz went with Ruth Sinn, who was the coach at Apple Valley High.

"It was heartbreaking, but I also understood that St. Thomas wanted a completely fresh look at the basketball situation," Thompson said.

She made a call to Macalester. The Scots couldn't believe their luck -- a coach with an 82-40 record in six seasons at Hopkins High and with a strong background in the MIAC was willing to take a shot at building their program.

And that's the verb: building -- not rebuilding. Macalester's ineptitude in women's basketball was long-standing. The MIAC had crowned champions for over two decades and the Scots never finished above fifth.

Thompson's first game was a 74-25 loss to St. Scholastica on Nov. 18, 2005. They played a single round robin against MIAC opponents, going 0-11 and averaging 34.5 points. The overall record was 2-21.

"We talked to recruits about Macalester as a great school, and also said, 'Come here and you will have a chance to play as a freshman,'" Thompson said. "And we said, 'With enough hard work, you can change Macalester basketball.'"

Thompson brought in a half-dozen freshmen for the 2006-07 season. Center Ann Baltzer from Bismarck, N.D.; point guard Danielle Johnson from DeForest, Wis.; and forward Trina PaStarr from Minneapolis Southwest were immediate starters.

Now seniors, they remain the backbone of the team that clobbered Augsburg 84-50 on Saturday in the Scots' new and spectacular Leonard Center. The victory put Mac at 7-1 in the MIAC and tied for first place with St. Benedict and Gustavus Adolphus.

PaStarr was asked her level of shock with this turnaround -- from 5-17 in the MIAC as a freshman, to 8-14 in 2007-08, to 9-13 last season and now this?

"I'm not shocked at all," PaStarr said. "We knew Ellen was a coach who could bring in amazing talent. We talked about this as freshmen -- how the team would keep getting better and our senior year was going to be special."

Earlier this season, PaStarr became the eighth women's player at Mac to reach 1,000 points. On Saturday, the 6-foot Baltzer became the ninth with a short-range basket midway in the second half.

The Scots try to play fast, but a half-court offense always starts with a look inside to Baltzer. The multi-dimensional PaStarr leads the league in rebounding, and also provides shooting and ballhandling.

PaStarr talked hoops for a time after Saturday's rout, then was asked the key question: What's with "Pa" as a prefix?

"It's a totally made-up name by my parents," she said. "My dad was a Pap, my mom was a Starck, and they switched those around and came up with PaStarr [pronounced Pas-tar]. It's a cool name."

As well as a perfect way to come up with a name for two future Macalester students -- Trina and older sister Callie, also a former Macalester basketball player.

"You're right," Trina said. "My parents were a couple of hippies. They even lived in a teepee for a while."

Ellen and Scott Thompson have three daughters aged 9 to 14 and a 7-year-old son. Dad had all of them in youth basketball games early Saturday.

"Now, we're leaving here and heading to three more games with the kids," Ellen said. "This is our life."

Patrick Reusse can be heard 5:30-9 a.m. weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP. • preusse@startribune.com