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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 2, 2013Kelly SheffieldTHE MODERATOR: The volleyball team earned the No.12 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They'll host action this weekend. Starting on Friday, they will host Milwaukee at 7:30 p.m.  Before that, North Carolina and Cal will square off at 5:00 p.m. at the Field House, and the winners of those matches will advance to the second round on Saturday, 6:00 p.m. at the Field House. And then the second‑round winner will advance to the Champaign, Illinois, regional on December 13th and 14th. Head Coach Kelly Sheffield is here. We'll have opening comments and take questions. COACH SHEFFIELD: I thought we ended the regular season really, really well. We go into Northwestern and we're playing a team that was fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives, and I thought we came out and played a really, really good, steady match. And it was, you know, from everybody. It was a great team effort. Our entire team played pretty well. It's how you'd want to go into the NCAA Tournament. Last night was cool. Our kids were pretty fired up, as they should be. I told them, I don't care how many times you've been in the NCAA Tournament, Selection Show Sunday is a wild and fun ride and enjoy it. And they did. It was neat for them to see Wisconsin's name come up there on the screen and celebrate. Now we get to work starting today. We've got‑‑ you know, it's a heck of a subregional, but we're excited to get started. Q. What kind of home‑court advantage do you envision this weekend? COACH SHEFFIELD: I envision turning fans away. I envision it packed. That's what I'm hoping, anyways. I'm hoping that this great fan base comes out and they support us like crazy. We need it. We're excited about hosting. We think‑‑ you know, we're appreciative of the seed that the NCAA Tournament Committee gave us, but we felt like we earned. I'll tell you what, I'm not sure anybody got a tougher subregional than what we did. You look at it, there are 64 teams in it, but two of the top 15 teams in the country are in our subregional, and another team that's receiving votes, it's a heck of a challenge. We're going to need as many fans as possible to help us out, and hopefully we're going to be able to extend our season. Q. What has surprised you most about your first year here at Wisconsin? COACH SHEFFIELD: You're asking me to‑‑ you're asking me to go to a place, I'm going on 40, and you're trying to get me to think back. It's the support probably. You know it as an outsider a little bit, but when you're in it, it's even cooler. You hear from a lot of fans and their enthusiasm and passion, and the support of the administration has been incredible. Match nights, how that's grown as the season has gone on has been really, really cool. I don't know if anything has surprised me, but there's a lot of things I just find myself going, well, that's pretty cool. Q. Whenever you see an opponent that you've already faced in the first game of the NCAA Tournament, is there any comfort in that going in? COACH SHEFFIELD: Maybe a little from the standpoint of‑‑ you've got to understand. The past few months, we've played people that we know. And teams that you see a lot of matches on. I mean, we played Northwestern, we saw like 19 matches of theirs. We had that available before playing them. I think sometimes you go into that first match, especially in the NCAA Tournament, and if you really know nothing about them, except maybe one video on them, it's a lot different than earlier‑‑ than what you've been used to. We can go back, and we can look at a match we played earlier. Our kids are smart enough. They know that that doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on the outcome of this. It was actually kind of interesting going back and watching that match. Annemarie Hickey was out, and you're watching us run a lot of quicks with Ellen Chapman and topspin jumpers with Deme Morales and Dominique Thompson serving and playing the back row. It looks a lot different than what we're looking like right now. Probably from a familiarity standpoint, it's nice. You don't need to tell these kids‑‑ you know, sometimes as coaches, we live in a world of being scared all the time, and these are smart kids. They know that this is ‑‑ what happened in September has nothing to do with what's going on in December. Q. Looking forward, what will your message be to the team this week given that it is tournament time? COACH SHEFFIELD: Well, our message last night was dream big. You know, believe that there's nothing in this tournament that we're not capable of doing, and I think it's really important that your kids believe that. I believe that. I believe we're capable of really doing some special things. But the message today will be that we're in a four‑team tournament, and here's the four teams, and we've got to win number one‑‑ our first match to get to the championship of this tournament this weekend. Let's focus in on, you know, doing the things that they‑‑ we talked about after our match with Northwestern is you've got to simplify this week. Take advantage of Sunday. Get your schoolwork done, make sure that you get caught up on laundry and things like that, so as the week gets here and the craziness takes over, you're not feeling like you're overwhelmed. Take care of your classes, take care of your sleep, eat the right stuff. When you get to practice, let's eliminate distractions. But that's been a message all year long, but you kind of remind them of those types of things. And then build their confidence and say, hey, we've been through a meat grinder of a year. When you're in the Big Ten, that preps you for the NCAA Tournament. You know, you lose and your season's over, and that's different from the conference season. But, my goodness, how could it be any tougher than what we've been through? So I think in a way that gives you a little bit of confidence that we've seen a lot of stuff; now use that to your advantage. Go into this new season with some enthusiasm, and let's play together and see what happens. Q. None of these players have played in an NCAA Tournament before, so I can imagine wide eyes. But how much does playing and staying here help going into it? COACH SHEFFIELD: Taylor Morey actually played in the NCAA match last year. She's our one experienced kid, and that one match is going to pay huge dividends for our entire program. We're going to rely on her a lot. That was me joking. I got no smile from you guys. So I appreciate it. You know, it's‑‑ home is nice, but I guess we'd frame it differently if we were on the road. You'd sit there say, hey, it's all us, we got no distractions and everything. Bottom line is, when it's time to play, you've got to be ready to go. You've got to have your prep work done. It is nice that we're home. Our kids are excited about being home. I know we heard from a lot of fans in the past however many hours, and they're really, really excited that they're able to watch some more. You know, it certainly doesn't hurt being home, I'll tell you that. Q. You were talking about the support from the fans, the administrators. Is there a conversation you've had maybe recently that's stood out to you? COACH SHEFFIELD: No, I think they do what a lot of elite administrations do. They let the coaches coach. They support, and there's not micromanaging. And it's‑‑ you know, those real conversations happen outside the season. They just‑‑ they've been really supportive. They've been there any time myself or my staff have had questions or concerns, and they've addressed those. I think, when we've had some ideas on‑‑ you know, some of them have been good, and some of them haven't been real good, they've been open to looking at things. Our support staff has been really, really relieved a lot of stress on us. We got a lot of help. There's a lot of people making this machine go, not just this volleyball machine, but this athletic department. We've been really, really fortunate having as many people helping us out as what we've had. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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