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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 5, 2013Jen HooverJEN HOOVER: We're excited to be going to Greensboro this week. I have a senior team, five seniors that have really relished in their experience at Greensboro and the atmosphere there at the ACC tournament. Although we've been a little disappointed in our play as of late, we're really encouraged and excited about the opportunity to play a better game and just kind of refocusing ourselves in on what it's going to take to advance and talking about this season coming upon us. Much like Dennis said, we had our non‑conference, our conference and now we have the ACC tournament season. Q. Your team has a lot of experience winning ACC tournament games, so what's your message to them this week heading in? JEN HOOVER: Well, you know, I think they kind of gave us a message a little bit about that, and I think part of it is just what we're going to Greensboro to do and that they've been there before and that it's going to take all 13 of us. We know what Georgia Tech is going to bring to the table. We've had some great battles‑‑ we had a great battle against them at their place, and they do a phenomenal job and they're playing well, and we know that we can play with them. I think the message to the team is that we've got to go in and play Wake Forest basketball, we've got to play together, we've got to play for 40 plus minutes, we've got to take care of the ball and we've got to be in attack mode. Q. The word I hear to describe your team the most, and I've heard it all season, is dangerous. Contribution‑wise on the floor, what do you think has to happen for your team to make another run through the tournament? JEN HOOVER: Well, I think we are dangerous in a lot of ways, and we constantly talk about it as a team, like when our five that are on the floor at a given time are really doing their individual roles and playing well off of each other, we can be extremely dangerous. I think what we have to understand is tournament time is a time when you've got to be playing your best, and we've got to play off of each other in that kind of way, and I think our guards have got to be able to get their shots, and they've proved that they can do that all year long. I think our post game as of late, Sandra Garcia has really become an inside ‑‑ demanding the ball and really being aggressive going to the basket, and I think that has continued to open things up for our perimeter play, and then I think Dearica Hamby's ability to affect the game on both ends of the court, we really have to be able to play‑‑ everyone has to be able to do their job, and people coming in off the bench have got to be able to come in and keep that role in force. I think a couple key things for us is going to be rebounding and taking care of the ball in the tournament. Q. What has Lakevia Boykin meant to your program, and also Asia Williams and talk about Asia getting more playing time this year than she ever did. JEN HOOVER: Well, could talk all day about Lakevia to start off with. She's just a kid that's done everything, and I've only had the privilege of coaching her for a year, but to watch her explosiveness in practice daily, her ability, whether it's to shoot a three or whether it's to take somebody on her infamous one‑two dribble pull‑up or get all the way to the basket, and we ask that kid to defend the best player on the other team a lot of times, depending on the size of a match‑up. She's been a captain for us, she's been a leader on and off the floor for us. She's just poured her heart and soul into this year, and being a new staff, just so appreciative of everything she's given to us. We talk as a staff, we'd really love to clone her and try to find a way to bring her back another couple years. But I think she's got a strong future ahead of her. She's gotten into the So You Want to Be a Coach program, she also is going to have opportunities to play, and I just think she's‑‑ she and I talked yesterday that she doesn't want to be done yet, and I think that she's kind of the quiet assassin at times. She's got a heart of a champion, and I think she's really motivated and focused on the task at hand. And then Asia, Asia is a kid that has an unbelievable feel for the game. She sees things on the court that other players don't see at times, and I think that's a testament to some of the assist games she's had. I think she had three back to back games where she had 10, 8 and 10, and I think looking at Asia from kind of a 3 spot, a lot of people don't expect that, but a lot of times she's able to create for us, and some of that is because she's playing with Lakevia and Chelsea, and other teams key in on those two so much that it creates some driving lanes and she's got a great feel for it. She's come back from the injury, she worked hard to get back from it in the off‑season, and she was a little frustrated at the beginning of her senior year because she wasn't back where she felt she needed to be. I remember we sat in my office with her and our strength coach and our trainer and said, Asia, we don't have to be there right now, this was like in August, we've got to be there in November, so let's get a plan of attack. And she's been very tunnel visioned on what she wanted and how she wanted to get there. I think she's played through a lot of pain at times, especially with this heavy a minutes as she's played, but whether it's asking her to be a beast on the offensive rebounds as much as she was up at Boston College early in the conference to creating and having those assist nights, or is it putting up 20 points on someone, and she's able to do so many different things on any given night. Again, she's one we ask to defend the best player on the other team a lot because she's got more size, she's able to guard pure guards. So those two have just meant a lot to us being from this area. I think when they came to Wake Forest they came here because they wanted to help Wake Forest become a winner, and in their four years here, I know there's been ups and downs in that, but I definitely think they both know that they've put their all into the program and we're very appreciative for everything they've done. Q. You're being honored as a legend this week. Not many coaches get to coach at their alma mater. What do you think you bring extra to your players being able to tell them I've walked in your shoes? JEN HOOVER: This is a dream come true for me. It's funny, people are like how is the season going. I'm like, I'm living the dream. We've got a long way to go, and our goal every day has been to get better and to get better on and off the court. And I think with me to be able to walk in with my players and recruits, it's to be able to tell them that I've been here and I've lived in your shoes, and it isn't easy and it's not easy anywhere you go. But the ability to be at a school with the educational background and to play in a conference the best of the best, we talk about it all the time ‑‑ when we were going to play at Duke, I said, that's why you came here. It was ‑‑ this opportunity to play in the ACC tournament this week is a part of what brought you to Wake Forest and it was a part of what brought me to Wake Forest. Now to be able to sit back and have that chance to talk about a school that were four of the best years of my life and sell that program to other people, it's just been, like I said‑‑ a dull whirlwind and a treadmill, but it is a dream come true. I've really enjoyed the team and getting to know them and understand them, and we're going to be really sad to see five seniors walk away from us, but we always talk about once a Deacon always a Deacon, and to now to kind of be back as a Deacon actually has done what they're trying to do, and I think it is a lot of fun for me and my family, I know. Q. You've obviously played in the tournament before. Is there a memory from your playing days in the tournament that sort of sticks out to you? JEN HOOVER: I probably have a couple, probably two different memories that I can always go back to with the ACC tournament. I was up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, all four years back when they used to have a banquet and kind of the whole shindig. One year when I came to Wake Forest we always had pretty heated match‑ups with Virginia, and that was who it came down to, Wake and Virginia for me when I was making my decision. I know one year against them we went to the wire‑‑ I couldn't even tell you what year it was, but we really gave them a scare, kind of almost upset them in three of those four years is when they went to the Final Four. And I'd say the other one was my last game in a Wake Forest uniform, and I think we played NC State that year, and when the horn sounded because I broke the school scoring record during that game, my fondest memory is not that piece of it, it's watching my head coach Joe Sanchez run out and practically tackle the officials to get the game ball and bring it back to the locker room, ran into the locker room before anybody could try to catch him. It's just a testament of what my coach meant to me and a big part of why I knew that this was the right place for me. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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