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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SWIMMING MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 15, 2016

Whitney Hite

THE MODERATOR: Women's Swimming and Diving Coach Whitney Hite is here. We will have opening comments and take questions.

COACH HITE: We're excited. I think the meet this year for the women is really wide open. Which is an exciting thing for us. There's some traditional teams that aren't as good as they have been in the past, and certainly we're looking at a wide open meet. I was telling someone the other day we could go anywhere from -- I think the first seven spots are pretty wide open, so we're in a place that, you know, we've done some things this season that we've never done as far as dual meet victories, and I think that our team is kind of ever-evolving, and we keep getting better each time-out, so it's an exciting time for us.

Q. It has been an impressive season on the women's side. Can you describe what the group has gone through this year starting with beating Minnesota at home and sweeping a dual like that to the point that now they're headed to the Championships?
COACH HITE: Yeah, I remember my first year here when I spoke with Minnesota's coach, Kelly Kremer, and I said our goal is to make this a rivalry, and that's been our job to make it competitive instead of getting drown, so to speak. For us, you know, Kelly came right up after the meet and said, "Our women's team hasn't lost a Big Ten dual meet in probably over a decade."

So it was a good step for us, and as you climb the mountain, I'm pretty impatient but these women have done a really nice job of continuing to improve. We had a great Texas Invite as a measuring stick for us in mid-season. Going down to Auburn and Georgia, we were great against Auburn, Auburn is a very a tough team traditionally. That's a program that you walk in the building and you see 13 national championships all in the last 20 years for the men and women.

It was their Senior Day, and so it was nice for us to step up on the road and get a signature win, so to speak. We got roughed up a little bit with Georgia, but I think that kind of gives us some motivation and humbles you enough to know that we've still got some work to do.

Again, this is a little bit of a different Big Ten meet than in years past, where anything is possible, and we'll go in there and see how we do. I'm confident that we can get what we need to out of it, as far as getting people to the next step which is NCAAs.

Q. How much is the Big Ten Championship based on the depth of your team versus a national championship is more like some of the top times?
COACH HITE: Right. Well, especially this year. This is the first year that we're scoring to 24 instead of 16, so depth will play a role in it and, again, one of the things that we worked on is getting some of that depth. We still have a smaller team. I'm very excited about our diving. We're going to get some points out of our divers this year, which is really great; it's been a point of emphasis for us as our team and program has evolved. I remember when I was at Georgia, winning national championships there we knew what our top eight were going to do, our studs were going to do, it was the 9 through 16 that needed to raise up and we've got -- similar here, we've got a core of young women that are really good both within the conference and nationally, and we know what we're going to get out of them, which it's going to be good, we just need our 9 through 16, so to speak, or 10 through 20 to step up.

Q. Can you briefly tell us about your 1 through 8 or maybe a couple that have had a nice year so far?
COACH HITE: Sure. Chase Kinney, right off the bat has been in Ivy Martin's shadow for two years. She is a junior and she really has stepped up and done very, very well, kind of taken over that sprint piece for us. When you have a hammer at the end of the relay to throw down -- and she is very competitive and has really done a nice job.

Danielle Valley has been terrific for us this year, transfer from Florida. She grew up in Florida and things didn't work out there can we were about the only place that she came on a visit during the recruiting process, so it's been a process for her to kind of adjust to our system and how we train, but she is as tough of a swimmer as I've ever coached and that's saying a lot. That girl is -- she is tough.

We've got a couple of seniors, Anna Meinholz and Jenny Holtzen and Annie Tamblyn who, you know, they've really grown into their roles as leaders and they've been to NCAAs before so they know -- they've been tested. Jessica Unicomb is a very good freshman from Australia, and she has been a great pick-up for us. She has provided a great way to lead off medley relays, and she has just done a really nice job kind of from day one, had her coming out party at the Minnesota dual meet and has just run with it.

Then we've got some people that I think are going to surprise other programs, hopefully, not us, but Grace Wold has had a terrific Texas Invite meet, and we've got some freshmen and our program is based on development. You come in pretty good as a freshmen, you have a pretty good freshman year and your sophomore, junior and senior year you keep getting better; that's the strength of our program.

Q. Is it realistic to think you could win a Big Ten title?
COACH HITE: Anything is possible. Anything is possible. You don't want to limit anybody. I believe in our women. Do I think that we may be a year away? Yeah. But you never know. It is wide open this year. Again, we could be third or we could be seventh. We've got to show up. If we show up like we can, anything is possible. We'll see. I think we may be a year away.

Q. How do you mentally prepare the team for a meet like this? I know when I chat with the student-athletes I talk about the energy, especially at Big Ten Championships, just being on the pool deck and the energy from the fans and everybody competing, especially with somebody like Jess Unicomb. How do you kind of get her in the mind-set of what she is about to embark on?
COACH HITE: It's all about managing your energy. We've got seven sessions, and you don't want to -- it's kind of like a 200 Free, you don't want to dump the bucket -- if you get a bucket of energy in every race, you don't want to dump the bucket on the first 25. Same kind of thing, everybody is all jacked up the first session Wednesday night and fortunately, Jess will be swimming a 50, so she can blast it out a little bit and -- but a lot of it, too, is we rely on our seniors and our leadership and we talk a lot about the women are really good about helping each other out, and we use that as -- you know, my job is to bring the energy, so they don't have to. Not to get 'em overhyped, but our job as coaches, bring the energy, make sure that they get what they need and it's like a light switch; you've got to go on and off and on and off and make sure so that the last session you're not out of bullets.

THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thank you, Whitney.

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