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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 23, 2015

Kelly Sheffield

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: Women's Volleyball Head Coach, Kelly Sheffield is here. We will have an opening statement, then take questions.

COACH SHEFFIELD: Thanks, Brian. You know, coming off a couple nice wins for us, the Illinois match, and going to their place against a team that's just -- that's really gotten a lot better, and playing at a pretty high level. To go in there and battle back and find a way to win in five, especially after the shellacking that we took in game two, good win for us. Then to have the opportunity to go at a team that you lost to earlier in the year and come in here and beat 'em at home, you know, good week.

I think probably we've gotten some really balanced performances from our kids, our middles I thought had a really nice week, Romana had a nice bounce-back match yesterday, but probably a big part of that has probably been our passing. You know, our last five matches were -- every one of our matches we passed over a 2.3, and we did that twice in the first 23 matches.

So the extra passing worked, that our back row players have put in, have really paid off for our team.

I think it's helped Lauren, use her creativity a little bit more, and our middles have gotten involved a little bit more. I don't think there is any -- certainly a direct correlation with how good Haleigh Nelson has been the past couple of weeks, I think, correlates to how good our ball control has been.

We've got two more matches this week to close out the Big Ten Conference, and we're going to try to get after it.

Q. You guys have had the 1% better mantra, and there have been times through the season where you focused on certain areas that you needed improvement. At this point are there areas that you can single out now to improve on? Or are you just polishing?
COACH SHEFFIELD: No, we're not polishing. We need -- and we've felt this for a long time. We felt like by the end of the year we could actually be a pretty good team. We were going to be a team that was going to need every single one of the practices to get to that point. You know, I think we've gotten -- you know, we've gotten significantly better in the last two or three weeks, and if we're fortunate enough to have another two or three weeks of our season, you know, can we get that much better?

You know, if you find out -- if you're in coast mode right now, then those teams tend to get clobbered when they really don't want to get clobbered at the end.

I feel like we can get a little bit better out of -- I always feel like we can get better at serving and passing. I don't think that changes. I think we can cover our attackers better, I think we can be better at a "system" attacking team. We're working hard on blocking and overall defense. I don't know, there is a litany of things that I think we can get better at.

Q. Coach, how important do you think it was for the team's psyche to get a five-set win under your belt?
COACH SHEFFIELD: I -- you know, I asked a couple of them that, and they're kind of -- it -- I don't think it was at a point where it was really kind of in our heads, but it certainly -- it feels great when you win those five -- you know, that fifth set. So it was a pretty happy locker room, not just because we won five sets but because of how we did it.

Game two -- I mean, just everything was going Illinois' way. We couldn't do a thing right, and they couldn't do anything wrong, and those things happen. And then they got a lead in game three, and we just -- we fought to overtake that, and game four was a heck of a battle. We had a couple of match points, end up losing that to go into five. The thing that I was really impressed with was every time -- seemed like every time we made an error, or they made a big play, we came back and we -- we executed, and we did that for about an hour and 15 minutes straight, where it was -- we weren't -- there weren't too many times where we were having two errors in a row.

Talk about mental toughness; that be wasn't something we were able to maintain for very long stretches earlier in the year. The other thing, I was telling Dennis the other day that I think we've done a really good job with is you know at the end of the sets, when it's "winning" time, we talk about that, you know, who's making plays and who is being steady when it's winning time, and that was something -- when you got those last five points earlier in the year, we weren't -- other teams were outexecuting us. And we've done a really good job of executing in those moments here the past few weeks, so that game five, it was huge because of how we played and the respect that we have for our opponent, it certainly felt good.

Q. You mentioned Lauren's creativity earlier. Across a lot of sports the phrase "green light" is thrown around a lot, whether it's Lebron has the green light to create, or Aaron Rogers in football. Has she earned that green light to be creative, maybe go off script a little bit?
COACH SHEFFIELD: We want her to take it into the lane, throw the Hail Mary anytime that you've got it. Yes! And, you know, there -- they -- early on in her career, you know, she was very talented but she -- we would get up against some blocking teams, and her team is getting blocked, and there would be some times like, man, every time I'm doing something, it seems like they're right there.

But she's -- she sees the game very, very well. She -- there was that period of time where, you know -- when the pass took her here, this is what she did with the set. She ran forward, she set back. She came off the net, she's about 6, 8 feet, gonna run a quick. She's running back, she's gonna set out. Then there became a time where, all right, I'm just going to stick with the game plan, and whatever the game plan is, that's what I'm going to do, regardless of this -- you know, what I'm seeing and reading out there.

Right now she is kind of -- she is taking the game plan, she is knowing her own abilities, she is knowing who the hot hitters are, and taking in a little bit of information.

She is -- there is not a ton of stuff that is coming from the coaches to her during the match. There is some little bit of stuff, but she's gotten to the point where she can -- she can take that game plan, she can read what they're trying to do and mesh those worlds, and she is playing at a really high level right now.

It's -- you know, even better than what she was a month and a half ago. She just -- she is just seeing things really, really well out there.

Q. Are you all but guaranteed home matches for the NCAA?
COACH SHEFFIELD: We've got two regular season matches left so you hate to say "guarantee" you know, because you don't take anything for granted, but I would think that our RPI is probably going to be 4 or 5 going in, and the top 16 seeds are guaranteed to host, so I would anticipate that being the case, and, you know, it -- if we don't, it kinda reminds me -- you ever seen that movie -- that TV show, "Different Strokes"? You know, it would be, "What you talkin' 'bout Willis"? If we're not getting a couple of home matches, but I would anticipate that being the case. (Laughter).

THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thanks, Kelly.

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