Brad Hurley loves offense, but he trusts defense.

That's why even though Hurley is excited about the offensive improvement he has seen from several of his players, it's the defensive improvement of the entire team that he is banking on to make this season successful.On paper, it might appear that improving on last year's 6-16 record will be a tall order for the Panthers.Panther Valley averaged just 34 points a game a season ago and lost Madison Blasko, the team's only double figure scorer, to graduation.The Panthers do return three starters in Macey Markovich, Kailee Smith and Taylor Vance. The starting lineup also includes Megan Marouchoc, a top reserve from last season, and freshman point guard Christina Dacey.Although that group provides some nice returning experience, it doesn't provide much returning firepower. Markovich (6.5 ppg.) is the only player to average more than three points a game and together the starting lineup averaged under 13 points a game last season."I think we have a couple of players in Markovich and Dacey who can score from the perimeter," said Hurley. "Macey (Markovich) had the second most three-pointers (43) in the area last season and her shot is even better this season."In addition, Kailee (Smith) and Taylor (Vance) have really worked hard on their post offense and it shows. A year ago they only combined to score four or five points a game, I'm hoping this year that number can go up to about 15-20 points a game between them. I think that is definitely possible."Hurley said getting contributions from his reserves will also be important for the Panthers. Among those to be counted on off the bench are Amy Corby, Brianna Picht, Chloe Markovich and Johnna Weaver.But even though Hurley is excited about the potential for some offensive improvement, it's the Panthers' defense that he is counting on."We need to play great defense to keep ourselves in games," he said. "From what I've seen, I think we can do that."Our communication and our man-to-man principles have both improved tremendously. The girls have bought into the little things they have to do to be a good defensive team."Hurley said the Panthers will do a lot of fullcourt pressing and play mostly man-to-man with some match-up zones mixed in when they are in their halfcourt defense."We are hoping to create some points with our pressure defense," said Hurley. "We have a pretty athletic team and we're hoping that translates into some easy transition baskets for us."We will be counting on Megan (Marouchoc) to be our defensive catalyst. She is our best perimeter defender and the quickest player on the team."In his second year as Panther Valley's head coach, Hurley said his definition of success isn't going to be tied into a certain number of wins. It's going to be based solely on the improvement he hopes to see."Our goal is to get better every time we take the floor," said Hurley. "Every practice, every game, we want to improve. If we do that, wins will take care of themselves."We aren't heading into the season saying we want 11 wins or we want to make districts. Every coach and every team wants to make the postseason. But our program isn't at the stage where we can look that far ahead. We need to keep improving and to take care of the little things. If we do that, I think we have the chance to experience some success."