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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 16, 2014Connie YoriCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Nebraska head coach Connie Yori. COACH YORI: We're an hour and a half late getting here. I didn't have time to change my clothes. So pardon me for my casualness. But we have four starters returning. Right now those four kids are playing very well. We have T, B, E and Hai. That's Tear'a Laudermill, Brandi Jeffery, Emily Cady, and Hailie Sample have been a big part of our success these past few years. They're playing really good basketball. And they're showing great leadership and, of course, we have Rachel Theriot who is returning as a First Team All‑Conference player who is playing really well right now. From there, we have a lot of question marks, largely because we don't have a lot of experience. And we have seven new players to ourprogram‑‑ six freshmen and a junior college player who they're all a work in progress. I think we'll see them progress throughout the season and I think we're going to see different kids at different times contribute for us, and we're going to have to. We'll have to have some of our new players play at least a small role and expand as they get better. So that will be a big part of whether we have success this year is how our new kids do for us. Q. Coach, how have the returning players, the leaders, helped the newcomers in their transition? COACH YORI: Well, our leadership is outstanding. We've had‑‑ you look at our four seasons in our program as I mentioned and Rachel Theriot who I basically consider as a senior because of the experiences she's had. Those guys understand what it takes to win. They understand the expectations that we have in our program. They're not only great really good leaders by example but several of them have taken on even a greater vocal leadership role. We've always gotten that with Emily Cady. She's been a vocal leader for the last couple of years. Rachel, even though she's a quiet leader, she's really good behind the scenes as a vocal leader. And I think some of our other seniors have taken on a greater role in that area. But in terms of leadership by example, those five don't have a lot of questions from that standpoint. So our young players have great role models on an everyday basis in our practice setting. Q. How excited are you to have Rutgers and Maryland in this league? COACH YORI: You asked the question excited? Q. You can phrase it however you like. COACH YORI: It's just made our league stronger. That's a good thing for fans. It's a good thing for the media. Doesn't make it easier for the coaches and players. I know our players love to play against great competition. But it makes it harder to win basketball games. And the expansion to an 18‑game schedule I think makes the Big Ten even more challenging. It's been such a great league for a number of years. And one of the best in the country. And I think now with the addition of those two programs, I mean, we have a chance to I think consistently be the best league in the country. Q. You were in the situation that Vivian Stringer and Brenda Frese were just a couple of years ago, I guess, but what are the biggest challenges when you're coming into a new league? COACH YORI: You have to just learn‑‑ in these guys' case, they have to learn 13 new teams. At that point we had to learn 11, about 11 new teams. They only have tolearn ‑‑ we only have to learn about two new teams, and at the point we were coming in, everybody else only had to learn coming about Nebraska. So there's just a lot of depth to that, and I think now as you get into a league, you have a better understanding of what coaches are going to do in certain circumstances. You don't always know that when you have new coaches in the league or new programs or new institutions coming to the league. So for those guys‑‑ I'm not feeling sorry for them. I'm going to tell you right now. Because I think they'll take care of what they need to take care of. They're two really well‑coached programs with great experience at the head coaching position, and I think they'll do fine. Q. You talked about the four kids coming back, but the one loss, Jordan, was possibly the most nightmarish matchup maybe in the league over the last couple of three years. Did you have somebody‑‑ COACH YORI: I was trying to stay positive and then you go right down that road (chuckling). Of course losing a player of Jordan's caliber changes who we are. And there was such a focus from our opponents on her and she was essentially face guarded in every game. What this does for us is it changes our spacing on the offensive end. It makes some other players going to have to expand their games that have played a lot for us. And Jordan leaves the Nebraska program as one of the best scorers and best rebounders of all time. We've had a history of pretty good women's basketball. So you lose the First Team All‑American and at least in one poll the Big Ten Player of the Year, that's a big loss. We're trading seven for one. Right now, you know, we could take those seven kids and put them together and maybe we could make Jordan, but we're not quite there yet. Q. There's been a lot of emphasis and talk about this league, particularly over the years how much more athletic, how fast, how much faster it's gotten and a lot of emphasis particularly obviously with Maryland coming in and Rutgers on the run. How much of your strategy will be on the running game as opposed to the strengths that you have in the half court? COACH YORI: Well, we always have been a team that pushes the ball. We push on makes and we push on misses. And there's not a lot of teams that do that. We were a really good half court execution team last year, too. But we were a team that focused on transition, and we got a lot of stuff in transition. So we'll continue to do what we do. But we better get back, get back in defense and transition. There's some things there that sometimes you have to send two back when you're playing against transition teams but we've been a team that hasn't given up a lot of easy baskets over the years. Hopefully we continue to do what we do and keep playing our version of basketball. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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