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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 30, 2015

Kelly Sheffield

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: Women's Volleyball Head Coach, Kelly Sheffield is here. We will have some opening comments and take questions.

COACH SHEFFIELD: We will skip through a bunch of the coaches' cliches right now. We're excited about playing, we're excited about hosting. We're hoping that we can pack the fieldhouse this weekend, and should be some great volleyball.

Q. Last night when you looked at the bracket you thought it was unusual. As you've had several hours to look at the way things lined up, did it seem any more than unusual, with Oregon as your first-round match-up versus what other seeded teams are facing in?
COACH SHEFFIELD: Yeah, looked different, certainly. I would say on paper it probably has the potential of being one of the best, most competitive first-round matches for a seeded team in a long time, and we're excited that the NCAA chose us to be a part of that.

Oregon is a really talented team, very well coached, and, you know, I'm sure that they're probably looking at the bracket saying all right, there are two teams that finished behind us in the PAC that drew unseeded teams. That's probably a little bit unusual for them as well.

It's challenging, it's tough. I do know this: There is not a lot of people that go around and they whine about their situation. Those are typically not people that are very successful in what they're doing, so you've been around our program a lot. We have -- we talk about having a mind-set of "bring it!"

That's kind of where our kids are at right now. They recognize it's a different type of first-round match-up than what you would probably anticipate, but I think right away it was, all right, "bring it!"

Q. Kelly, could you contrast where this team is in terms of preparation and readiness compared to your first two years here? Are you at the same spot, ahead of the game? How do you feel about the psychological point as which your team stands?
COACH SHEFFIELD: I'm not sure I can really give a comparison. Where we're at right now -- and it's been a heck of a ride, a heck of a long journey to kind of get here -- is that our team is -- they're really confident right now.

I like how we're playing, I really like how we're playing. I like the mind-set, I like how we seem to be embracing challenges right now, where earlier in the year we kind of -- I don't know, we kind of fretted about it a little bit. It almost seemed like we had players that preferred things being a little bit easier, they enjoyed the blowouts or playing somebody that might not have been quite as talented as we are -- not all of them but a few.

I see a team right now that is really, really, you know, kind of having that mind-set of, you know, when it gets a little bit hectic, when things get really close, when opponents bringing -- stopping what you're trying to do, that little thing inside their head that says, I like this, I like being on the road, playing in front of a tough crowd, I like it when the other team is really playing well. I'm not sure that we were that type of team earlier.

I don't know. I don't know about comparing, but -- I'm not sure that we could be in a better place going into the tournament, and what I'm seeing out of this -- and I'm not sure I could have predicted this three weeks ago, but I see a team that, although they have had some success recently, is still very, very hungry and very, very driven. Had you asked me that about a month ago, I might have said this might be a team with some players that would be satisfied once they had some success. I'm not -- I'm seeing the exact opposite of that right now. It's been a long journey, and I think we're excited about giving this thing a go.

Q. What do you know about Oregon that you didn't at ten o'clock last night? What are the biggest challenges they present you.
COACH SHEFFIELD: You know, when you're preparing for a team, you don't look at their record. What you do look at is how a team is progressing over the course of a season. You see a team that they're also playing their best volleyball at the end of the year. They had a chance of sweeping Nebraska earlier, they beat UCLA, they were a point away from going up 2-1 on Washington. This is a legitimate team who has gotten a lot stronger as the season has gone on, but you look to see how a team is progressing through the year, and then you look at, all right, how are you going to match-up with this? What do they do that is unique, and their style is just -- it's not just this year's team, it's -- it's Coach Moore's team over the years.

They play a different style than anybody else in the country does, and that's a challenge when you haven't seen them. When you're in the same conference you see them year after year, you kind of know what you're getting into, but -- they will run plays where their outside hitters are coming in for quicks, their outside hitters will pass in front of the setter, over in the corner, and pass the ball and run to the exact opposite corner and hit a one-foot slide behind the setter. Nobody does that!

So the number of looks they give you is very different, and it's probably going to take us some time -- forget about our players, it's going to take our coaches some type to get our head wrapped around what we're wanting to do with them, how we're going to defend, and how we're going to block. I know this, the way that we typically block we're not going to be able to against them.

They overload half the court an awful lot, and they will do it with three hitters, and half of the court may be the half where the setter is. You know they're going to give you a lot of different looks, you know that they're well coached. The other three coaches that are coming here, head coaches, all three of them have experience in the Regional Final or the Final Four, either as a head coach or assistant coach, so they're experienced coaches.

We're still trying to wrap our brain around Oregon right now, but they're an animal.

Q. Coach, this goes to what you answered earlier but at the beginning of the year, obviously you had some questions, such a young team. Now you're at the end of the season, is this team where you thought they could get to, did they surpass that? Where are they sitting in regards to your expectations?
COACH SHEFFIELD: It um -- you know, you sit there and look at the players that we had and the amount of work that they put in in the off-season and some of the leaders that we have, some of the talent that we have and you think, all right, if everything kind of goes a certain way this could be a team that could make a run and that could be one of those -- be one of those last teams standing at the end of the year.

You certainly don't count on that, but I knew that we had a long, long way to go to be that type of team, and I knew that we were going to need about -- to squeeze about every day out of this season to get to that point, where maybe like last year's team we were pretty darn good pretty early and, you know, then it's trying to find ways to keep getting better. This team has had a different path, and in a lot of ways a really, really hard path.

You know, for a good portion of the season I wasn't -- it was hard to be in the gym, not for me, but I'm sure it was for our players at times, and they just -- I'm really proud of the growth that they've had. I'm proud that they have kind of stuck together, they have allowed themselves to be coachable, they have allowed themselves to be uncomfortable, and that's the only way they have been able to expand their games.

I'm proud of the leaders that we have had. We've got great, great leadership on this team that -- it's important to them. They're really excited about this opportunity in front of them.

Q. Kelly, I know you're not a football coach, but it sounds like Oregon is a team -- like preparing for a wishbone team when you're playing in a league with up-tempo offenses. Is it that unconventional in your mind?
COACH SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it's very unconventional, what they're doing. Like I said, I don't know anybody else in the country that is doing this, what they're trying to do, and he's had success. A few years ago they were in the National Championship match, had a chance to win it all.

He's had a lot of success with the style that he is doing. It is -- and, you know, you see a team that is getting stronger as it's going through the season, so that's kind of what's exciting, is that you've got two teams that are going head-to-head that have gone through the gauntlet themselves. Both teams have played really tough competition, both teams have gotten a lot better as the season has gone on.

They've got kind of a -- you know, a setter that -- I'm watching film. I've never seen a setter set as many quicks from sitting on her rear end or even lying on her back. There is one time she is setting a quick, when she is literally lying on her back. Who does that? It's -- but they do it, and they do it very well.

Q. Heading into tournaments across almost all sports there is something to be said about peaking. Are you guys peaking at the right time?
COACH SHEFFIELD: I hope we haven't peaked, but I don't think so. You know, we are going to try to shorten up our practices a little bit, coming into the tournament. I don't know, I mean, it's -- you know, our -- Purdue might have been the strongest match that we played this year, and we probably could have said that a week earlier, maybe a week before that, so I think what we're starting to get is more than just one or two people on their game.

Where we're starting to be -- there is quite a few people that are playing well every night, and the other thing I'm seeing is that our good stretches are a lot longer than what they were in the middle part of the season. We're playing a lot cleaner, and when somebody's -- when our opponents are getting on runs, those runs around the 6, 7, 8 points, those seem to be 3 or 4 points.

Q. Is there one thing you can pinpoint to in this 12-game win streak that you can say, yeah, this is what kick-started this team?
COACH SHEFFIELD: Um, I think our ball control has certainly got a lot better. I really like where our passers are -- the jump that they've made especially probably in the last eight matches. I think defensibly we're just playing so much harder, you know, it's kind of, you know, Badger ball defense, where the first part it was a little bit more ole'd defense. We're taking pride in keeping the ball off the floor, we're taking pride that our opponents aren't acing us, and so much of that is just, I would say, a mentality of just, you're not going to get the easy stuff against us.

Q. Regarding the tournament structure, you're in a region where the top seed would be playing at home if they get that far, and whoever gets there with them will have to play there, and sounds like the NCAA is looking toward moving to that model going forward where high seeds stay home for regionals. Do you like that? Do you prefer neutral sites? Is it a disadvantage for the other three who end up there, assuming Texas is still involved, to have to play there? What's your thought on fairness versus atmosphere for a home crowd for top seeds?
COACH SHEFFIELD: I think it's a great idea if we're one of the top four seeds. (Laughter.)

Last year you had -- you know, it was -- we're playing the Regional Final, and we're playing, I don't know, a thousand miles away from here, close to it, in front of, what, about 1200 fans. It just -- it shouldn't be that. You know, it's -- this -- I would much rather go on the road and play in somebody else's place, and that place is packed and rabid than I would go somewhere where the place is indifferent and silent.

You know, we play in front of opposing -- big crowds on the road all the time, and that's just -- its way more enjoyable to do that than go somewhere where you're in a big arena, and it's pretty quiet. I think it puts even more emphasis on the regular season, certainly. I think it puts even more emphasis on how you're going to schedule, you know, the RPI -- the Committee spends a lot of time -- of how you're going to seed, which, by the way, I think they did a really good job of seeding this year, it seems.

But they take that seriously, and the RPI is a very important tool. So just more of an emphasis on being one of those top-four seeds, you get the opportunity of hosting possibly all the way to the Final Four. That's a pretty big deal. I think it makes the game more exciting.

Does it make it -- give more of an advantage to certain programs? Certainly, and, you know, but the way we would look at it if we're not one of those programs is get better, you know, get better so we have that opportunity to do that.

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

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