“Eight is enough” is more than just an ’80s TV show. For the Georgetown women’s basketball team, it’s a philosophy.

As three players graduated and three left the team for undisclosed reasons, the Hoyas are left with only eight active players on the roster for the 2005-06 season. But the team plans to make the most of its ability.

“The thing that I instill into our players’ heads is that eight is enough. That’s our theme for this year,” Head Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “What it is is what it is.”

What it will need to be is a finely tuned machine. For the players, creating team chemistry will facilitate their performance. All of the players stayed at Georgetown over the summer to work toward that end, while improving their strength and skills.

“We need to be strong together, knowing that we only have eight players that can play. I think this will bring us together,” sophomore forward Kieraah Marlow said.

Of the six players that Georgetown has lost since last season, the graduation of center Varda Tamoulianis (COL ’05) leaves the Hoyas their biggest hole. Tamoulianis, who started 26 of 28 games last year, posted the second-highest marks on the team in points (11.4 per game) and rebounds (7.9). Freshman Katrina Wheeler, a high school all-American, and senior Christine Whitt will both see time at center.

Georgetown does, at least, have four starters returning from last year.

“Although we’re young, we’re still very experienced,” Williams-Flournoy said, pointing out Marlow, who started every game last year, and fellow sophomore Kristin Heidloff, a point guard who played in every game last year.

“Both of them are very good players,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Kieraah is very strong underneath – she’s actually the strongest on the team in the weight room.”

Marlow is coming off a rookie campaign in which she racked up 13 double-doubles, leading the team with 8.6 rebounds and 12.5 points per game. Her rebounding mark was the second-highest in the league and her points average placed 12th. Add that to a .734 free-throw percentage, seventh-best in the conference, and you get a nomination to the all-Big East freshman team.

“I’m looking forward to expanding my game tremendously in other things that I didn’t do last year,” Marlow said. “I’ve really been concentrating on my shot and just trying to get my teammates around me better.”

Heidloff made a name for herself late in the season, earning the No. 2 starting spot when the conference schedule began. She improved her statistics from 3.6 points, 1.7 assists and 1.2 rebounds per game during out-of-conference play to 7.9 points, 3.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds per game during Big East play.

Look for Heidloff, already a team captain as a sophomore, to take more shots and be increasingly aggressive this year.

“Kristin is just stepping right into the role where she ended last year,” Williams-Flournoy said. She added that she wants to move Heidloff from the point to shooting guard to make room for freshman point guard Nikki Bozeman, but that will probably not happen right away.

Senior guard Kate Carlin, a perimeter shooter who averaged 8.1 points per game last year, might get squeezed out of the starting lineup when the change is made, but she will still get her fair share of playing time. Carlin followed a path similar to Heidloff’s last season, making 15 of her own 16 starts during the Big East schedule.

The team’s emotional leader is Bethany LeSueur, a fifth-year senior guard and a captain.

“She’s going to be relied on a lot this year, both scoring and in the leadership aspect of it,” Williams-Flournoy said.

LeSueur tallied 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game last year, and her 2.0 steals per game were sixth in the Big East. More importantly than that, though, is the positive impression that her diligence leaves on her teammates. The combination of hard work and a renewed confidence makes LeSueur a vital part of the team.

“She’s kind of our go-to player,” Heidloff said.

With the departures of junior forward Amber Dorsey, junior guard Rhea Beal and sophomore guard Jamie Mundy, the Hoyas’ bench will be anchored by senior guard Leslie Tyburski, the third team captain. Though she saw action in only six games last season, Tyburski will be an important factor this year.

“I think she understands her role, and she sees the numbers on the team, so I mean, she’s going to have to play,” Williams-Flournoy said. “She’s done a very good job of being a leader, being a senior leader, and just stepping it up a little bit. She’s a very good shooter.”

Of the departed players, Dorsey and Beal remain enrolled at Georgetown, but Mundy transferred to Delaware, where she is listed on the Blue Hens’ roster.

The Hoyas did add one transfer student, sophomore guard Brina Pollack from Purdue, but she will have to sit out this year per NCAA regulations. Pollack averaged 1.6 points and 0.9 rebounds per game in 28 games and 10 starts for the Boilermakers, who advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament last year.

Having just eight eligible players left this year will be an obstacle for the Hoyas, but they remain optimistic considering the progress that they made at the end of the year and the work that they put in over the summer. According to Williams-Flournoy and LeSueur, the team improved as the players became more comfortable with new offensive and defensive plays.

“When we run our offense right, when we run it well, we set those plays, we get people open. It really lets us play into what we do well,” LeSueur said. “And we have a year experience on playing the zone.”

As for the team’s numbers, “You only need five on the floor,” Williams-Flournoy said. “I think it hurts you more in practice than in a game situation. If you’ve got eight [in your] rotation in your game-day plan, that’s the norm.”

But with such a small team, one thing is for sure – the players are going to have to stay healthy for the long season ahead.

“It’s not a secret that it’s going to take a little extra toll on our bodies,” LeSueur said. “It’s really important for us to stay in shape and stay healthy and just take care of things early so we don’t get behind if we lose one. Comparatively, that’s huge.”

The Hoyas already have a small setback in the form of an unspecified injury to Bozeman.

Important to Williams-Flournoy, along with good health, is building athleticism.

“One of our weaknesses I think still is our athletic ability,” she said. “The Big East conference is very athletic.”

Georgetown was picked to finish 11th in the league’s preseason coaches’ poll. The Hoyas will face all five of the new teams in the Big East, now 16 schools strong. Three of the new teams – Louisville, South Florida and Marquette – are ranked ahead of Georgetown.

“I think it’s going to be a lot more competitive because you don’t get your second chance with certain teams,” Heidloff said. “There’s going to be a lot of teams very close to each other, and I think that’s going to make us more competitive.”

The conference schedule will be the truest test of the small team’s resiliency. But before Big East play gets underway, Georgetown will find out if eight will be enough when the season starts on Nov. 20 in a matchup against Savannah State in Savannah, Ga.