CINCINNATI — These days, Lauren Wasylson feels more like a track athlete than a basketball player.

The Mars graduate and Xavier University sophomore reports to the track at 7 a.m. on most mornings to get her running in.

She logs up to four miles, completing each in around six minutes.

When that's done, she reports to the weight room and then, finally, to the basketball court where she works on getting into the lane and on her pull-up jumper.

It has made for an insane summer for Wasylson, who is preparing harder than she ever has for a basketball season.

“I definitely feel like I'm in the best shape of my life,” Wasylson said. “All the conditioning stuff, all the long-distance running, all the lifting weights, all the basketball conditioning on the court, it's all exciting. It's exciting to see where that will take me.”

Wasylson is hoping it will take her to another level at Xavier with a new coaching staff that is completely revamping the Musketeers' style of play.

Wasylson is coming off a good freshman season in which the Valencia native started 24 of the team's 30 games and averaged 7.2 points per contest.

She also hit a team-leading 57 3-pointers.

But she felt like there was much more she could have done better.

“I'm definitely feeling a lot more comfortable with what I'm doing,” Wasylson said. “I think last year I doubted myself too much. I was intimidated a little playing in the Big East — a lot of people as freshmen don't get a chance to start almost every game in the Big East.

“I was one of the youngest players out there in the conference, which had a lot of veteran teams,” Wasylson added. “I was a freshman guarding fifth-year players and graduate-school players sometimes.”

Wasylson, though, saw a lot of playing time, averaging 27 minutes per game.

She expects that number to increase thanks to the conditioning program she tackled full bore.

“I think I will be able to be on the court for a long period of time without getting gassed,” Wasylson said.

That will be a valuable skill under first-year head coach Melanie Moore, who takes over after spending the last seven seasons as an assistant coach at Michigan.

Xavier was 11-19 last season and a disappointing 2-16 in the Big East.

Moore wants to play fast.

Very, very fast.

Wasylson is chomping at the bit to play that kind of style.

“We want to get up in the opponent's faces,” Wasylson said.

Wasylson said she also wants to branch out her skills.

Last year, she was predominately an outside shooting threat.

This season, she wants to be a dangerous player everywhere on the court.

“This year I'm not just going to be a 3-point shooter — that was my main gig last year,” Wasylson said. “I'm going to get into the lane more and be more of a confident shooter.”

The new coaching staff has shown a tremendous attention to detail already, Wasylson said.

That included tracking shooting percentages in practice during five-on-five sessions.

The coaching staff told Wasylson she had one of the highest shooting percentages on the team.

Moore and her staff also haven't been shy about putting the team to work during the offseason.

Wasylson welcomed that approach.

“That's definitely one of the things we needed,” Wasylson said. “We needed to be pushed. Change is good sometimes. It was a hard transition and we needed a period of time to adjust, but once we did, it's bringing us more confidence in what we do.”