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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 17, 2014Bobbie KelseyTHE MODERATOR: Head Coach Bobbie Kelsey is here. We'll have comments and then questions. COACH KELSEY: We are very pleased to open last night's season with a win. We played a tough and scrappy Illinois State team. It's always nice to get the "W" just starting out of the gates because then you have a lot of confidence going into your next game which we are going to need against a very good Vanderbilt team. With that being said, I don't have anything else to say. Y'all can ask questions. Q. Is Vanderbilt a home‑home and a series we're going to see for a while? Would you like to continue to play‑‑ you know what Vanderbilt was really like when Jim Foster was coaching there? COACH KELSEY: Oh, yeah, they have always been very good, very nice, had a lot of nice, good coaches come through. We played in their tournament last year so this is a return game. We try to play different SEC, ACC, Power Five opponents that are comparable to us, and that will give us a good challenge. We will play different SEC teams; I know we have Florida on the schedule as well. We're trying to play those teams that obviously give us an opportunity to show case our skills and look good when it's selection time, end of the year. Q. Nicole Bauman has played a lot for you over the first couple of years. It looks through your exhibitions and your first game she is taking a step forward in her game. Can you talk about her progress? COACH KELSEY:  Nicole is a very hard worker. She works on her game, she wants to be good at it. The things I have shared with her that she needs to‑‑ last year that she needed to do going forward for this year, working her pull‑up, her 3‑point shot, she has done those things. Her passing is tremendous, to have nine assists in any game is pretty good. She has just taken on more of a leadership role. She is a junior this year and you're not a baby anymore but you're not out the door yet. So this is the year to really show case what she can do and she has always been an excellent player without the ball. Nicole just knows how to cut and get herself available to receive a pass, so she is really, really key for us going forward. Q. How would you describe Cayla McMorris' play and do you like the way she plays? Do you have to tone her down a little bit? COACH KELSEY: No, she is a freshman; you want freshmen to be very aggressive. She is not afraid. She is a little nervous before the game, but who isn't? A little anxiety, but when the ball goes up Cayla is a gamer. I tried to tell her that when we signed her, that she would come in and make immediate impact, and she has done that. I think she gets a little aggressive when she is trying to shoot over two people, but I would rather that than somebody being scared. We can show her the video and coach her through those spots where she is trying to do too much, but she is only going to get better and better, and we are looking for big things. We need her‑‑ I told her when I recruited her, "We are not recruiting you to come in and learn; you have to be a sophomore week 3." She is embracing that, she is a quick learner. She is very smart and we're going to be depending on Cayla a lot. Q. You had a guard go off for 20 points in the second half against you. When you look back at that, do you look at your defenders, your backcourt, you tried several different people on her, and do you have somebody back there who you feel comfortable putting on somebody that's hot? COACH KELSEY: You know, that young lady got hot, she did go off, probably her career high. I'm not sure that was her career high, but when you go through their favorite moves and what they like to do, then you have to take those things away, and we didn't do a very good job of that, but give her credit. She continued to try to help her team crawl back, and they did. We had them by 30 and then let them come back. Again, we learn from those things. When you are in the beginning of the season, you're going to have those bumps when you don't do quite what you're supposed to do, but we will look at it and we will make sure we have someone that will be a lock‑down defender and we can say, "Hey, we need you to stop this kid." We have some of those kids, but I'm still trying to figure out where to put people and how to get the rotation down, so we'll get that taken care of. Q. Over the last couple of years obviously the seasons haven't gone ideally whether it's because of injuries or poor player, or whatever, but the way the team is constructed now, if you guys are able to kind of navigate the mine field and stay relatively healthy, what sort of potential do you think this year's team has? COACH KELSEY: We always feel if the kids pay attention and focus and pay attention to the scouting report, we can beat anybody; we have shown that in the past. But the consistency hasn't been there, so I agree with you we need to make sure that we have people in place to really understand what their roles are and what they're supposed to be doing out there. Because we have the height this year along with the guard play much improved, we've cut down on the turnovers, hopefully that will continue. We should be able to continue to be ‑‑ always have an opportunity to win the game and not have these stretches where we are not winning. We can't go into eight‑game losing streaks. I don't anticipate that but, again, I don't have a crystal ball, but we're going to take it one game at a time and focus on who we're playing, not looking forward, not looking back, and for me I have to keep the morale up and keep them positive because we don't have that great leadership on our team but they all lead in their own little ways. But we don't have the demonstrative player. We're still looking for that, but as a group they're willing to learn and they're working really hard to show that all their hard work has not been in vein. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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