As an assistant coach on Minnesota’s women’s basketball team, Dave Stromme’s main responsibility is post player development.

And if you consider Stromme’s coaching experience, perhaps it should come as no surprise that he turned Janel McCarville and Jamie Broback into two of the best post players in the country.

The duo reaffirmed that status when each of them scored 20-plus points in the first two games of the Big Ten Tournament during the weekend.

Stromme’s work this season will be put to its ultimate test when the Gophers (24-7) begin the first round of the NCAA Tournament on March 19 at Williams Arena. Seedings will be announced Sunday.

Before arriving in Minnesota in 2002, Stromme spent 17 years at Minnesota-Duluth, where the head coach was, and still is, his older sister Karen Stromme.

“That was fun,” Dave Stromme said. “She and I had a relationship where we could be brutally honest with each other. Mostly positives. There were a few negative times, but we could tell each other exactly what we felt.”

While with his sister at Duluth, he coached post players Ö and a few other things too.

For eight years, he taught tennis, golf and weightlifting. For six years, he was an assistant coach on the Bulldogs football team under legendary coach Jim Malosky – the winningest Division II coach in history.

Growing up in Duluth, Minn., Dave Stromme was immersed in a coaching environment.

His father was a baseball, basketball and football coach in the Duluth school system, and he lived three doors away from Malosky.

“I’ve been around coaches my entire life,” Dave Stromme said. “With the influence of my dad, as well as with Karen at Duluth and Jim Malosky with the football program, it just came naturally.”

Maybe it’s his tenure as a football coach that explains why the physical play of Broback and McCarville in the low post

frequently resembles that of an offensive lineman pushing aside defenders.

But Dave Stromme actually served as the wide receivers coach for Malosky from 1993-98, though McCarville and Broback said they both agree his style is unique.

“I’ve never really had a football coach for a coach,” McCarville said. “But having coached two different sports, he has two different ideas and two different perspectives on things.”

No matter what style of coaching Dave Stromme has or where he’s gotten it from, there is no doubt it has worked.

For the last two years, McCarville has been an All-American, and, this season, Broback was an honorable mention.

Not bad for a couple of players who weren’t even recruited outside of the Midwest.

“He’s the reason why we’ve been so successful,” Broback said. “He’s one of those coaches we can just go and talk to and get better from. On and off the court, he’s helped all the post players a tremendous amount, from (McCarville) to the freshmen.”

McCarville said Dave Stromme is indispensable – especially when the NCAA Tournament begins March 19.

“He helps us to stay focused for games, not getting too high or too low,” McCarville said. “Having him there to calm us down will be big in the postseason.”