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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 5, 2015Bobbie KelseyCOACH KELSEY: It's been quite some time since we talked to the media. We've had some victories and some losses in that period of time. The last two games have been tough for us, not having another post player, not hitting some shots, turning the ball over. We're making some progress in some areas. We just have to be consistent. I think that's the biggest issue for us right now. We get one person going, then somebody else kind of drops off. You're kind of going to get that when you have to play people that's not used to playing a whole lot. Credit to the other teams. They've done a good job of taking us out of what we want to do. Q. Where have you made progress, in your mind? COACH KELSEY: Just with Nicole being a better scorer for us, hitting the threes. We had Jacki pick up in the Northwestern game. Last night's game we had more assists than turnovers. We shot a pretty decent percentage from the three. Malayna played well. We just didn't hit some baskets and they hit probably every basket they took. I see improvement. But, again, it's got to be consistent improvement. Jacki needs to give us every game the game she gave us in the second half of the Northwestern game. Nicole has to be more consistent. Cassie had a double‑double in one game, then doesn't show up. Not to be critical of the kids, but they have to understand you have to bring your best every night, whatever that is. Even if your shot is not going, there's other things you can do to help our team, whether it be rebounding, making free throws, stopping the other player on their team that's giving us trouble, knowing the scouting report, knowing the game plan. I mean, I could go on and on and on. But we're trying as coaches to help them to see it, whether it be video watching, individual watching. Sometimes you just need to see yourself or see somebody else doing it well, and emulate. Sometimes imitation is good, too. So we're just working on the different things it's going to take for us to get more consistent the rest of this Big Ten season because all the games are tough, every last one of them. Q. You mentioned defensively, too. Is it primarily because of a lack of a number of post players? COACH KELSEY: Some of it is that. Every team has a good post player. We're going to see Agee tomorrow. She's 6'6". Yet the other night, it's Zahui. The night before it's another one. We have 6'5", Cassie and Malayna. The people we're counting on, Michaela Crall, Rosie, you're talking about two 6'4" kids that you don't have. Of course, mix‑out. Malayna, she's still young. Cassie, she's coming off of her injury, trying to get her bearings. When you just have the two, and Jacki being undersized, it's just hard when you have to match up with those kids. You have to double them. They kick it out, get a three. If it's not going, that's good. If it's going in... You got to leave somebody somewhere. But we're going to try to do some different things to see if we can figure out how to guard both, which is very difficult to do, especially when teams are hitting shots. Q. Talking about consistency, in your mind is it up to the coaches to find which buttons to push with certain players so they have that mindset? If so, what sort of methods do you use to try to push those buttons? Every personality is different. COACH KELSEY: Exactly. Some you can get on a little bit. Others you got to stroke a little bit. I think just trying to give them confidence in what they can do. I think we tend to focus on what we can't do, what's not going right, instead of what's going right, and let's do more of that. There's some methodology to it, but you just got to know your players. Every coach has a different method to what they do. I tend to try to do the positive thing, get on them, back it up with a little more positive. I'm not always the best at it, especially when I know what they can do and for whatever reason they're not doing it. We try to be more motivational than put out the whip and just whip 'em all the time. Especially with this group, because we just don't have a lot of depth. With all these games coming back‑to‑back‑to‑back, we just have to raise their level of confidence to let them know we've hit a bump but we can get through it if we just work together, continue to share the ball, make shots. That's been our biggest issue, trying to be more consistent with making the shots we do get. Yesterday we had a lot of open shots. For whatever reason, the ball wasn't dropping for us in the first half. Q. Whenever you have a game like that, is it kind of nice to rush back onto the court to get another crack at it? COACH KELSEY: Sometimes, I think so. When you lose, the longer you have, the more you think about what you haven't done. That's why it was nice to get the Christmas game, because you have a long break coming back. Last year we lost a game right before Christmas. It makes for a not‑so‑great Christmas. But you don't want to put everything on a game. It doesn't keep you in a good mood. It's nice to get right back on the court. The only problem, when you have low depth, not a lot of depth, kids are kind of tired more mentally than anything. So we won't go too long today. It's one‑day prep. Whatever we got to get in an hour and a half, that's what we got to get. But they're motivated. They're positive. We're not going to hang our head just because we got a loss or two. We got to bounce back and try to get this next one. Q. It's not often you see Penn State at the bottom of the Big Ten. What's happened? COACH KELSEY: You know, I think they're young. They have a lot of young players, some transfers, maybe not used to Coach Washington's system. But they're good. I'm baffled by it. I guess the other team is just scoring more points. Penn State, don't go by the record. It's not indicative. I think they've lost five or six games by 19 points. They got two overtime games they lost. A couple other ones two points, three points, five points. I mean, that was us two years ago. You're just right there. We don't want to be the game they turn the page on. I'm telling our kids, Don't go by the record. Just like we tell them people shouldn't go by our record. We can get hot. I think we're tough to cover when we have everybody on the same page. Penn State is big. They got 6'4", 6'6", 6'2". They're big. They got some quick guards. We're going to have a plan and see if we can execute it to the max. Hopefully our shots are going in more than theirs. So we'll see. Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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