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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS

October 18, 2006

Jody Conradt

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

PETER IRWIN: As we resume questions from the floor for the Media Days. We would like to welcome coach Conrad from the University of Texas. Coach, welcome. If you would like to make a couple of opening comments or two.
COACH CONRADT: Thank you. It is always good to be here. I wasn't ready for that blast of cold air when I got off the plane. Otherwise, it has been a warm welcome and we are happy to be in Oklahoma City. I think I should probably tell you I have many more questions in regard to our team than you probably have.
We are coming off a very disappointing season, a season that had lot of adversity, some of it brought on by ourselves and our lack of disciplined play.
But on the other hand, it is an opportunity for us to try to bounce back from that, try to play to Texas standards which we did not last year. And I can only tell you that I'm cautiously optimistic about what I see from our team.
Many of the things that we dealt with last year are still in place. We still are young. Out of 14 players on our team, 11 of them are freshmen or sophomores, we have a difficult schedule and we are still transitioning people back from injuries that devastated our team last year. So what I see makes me believe that we can be successful, that we can move forward and that we can play to our potential. But it's not going to help us at this point in time to talk about it. It is time for us to step up and do it.
PETER IRWIN: Okay, thank you, Coach. We will take questions from the floor.

Q. I was wondering if you can talk about Tiffany and maybe how her game can continue to expand and maybe how here game can continue to expand and trying not to take it all on her shoulders this year?
COACH CONRADT: Tiffany Jackson is a special player as her time in our conference would indicate. She has been a leader on our team in every statistical category possible. She is a special player in terms of how she approaches the game, how hard she works, how good she wants to be.
Unfortunately, I think part of our difficulties last year was we put too much responsibility on Tiffany. We were satisfied to stand back and let her do too much and give her no support. So part of our focus has been we have to step up. We have to play and raise our level of play around Tiffany.
She will be obviously a big part of what we do and I think she has, as she has each year, has increased her skill set, has become mentally tough and is willing to take on all challenges. I think there is a significant difference in her approach right now. Tiffany has taken ownership of this team and rightfully so. I think she has been capable of doing that for a while but we all have a tendency as players to defer to seniors. And Tiffany, I think, was waiting for a time where she could nurture and bring forward with leadership that she we were talking earlier.

Q. You mentioned last year's freshmen class which was highly regarded, you said didn't have the work ethic. You weren't calling them sophomores. You were calling them "refreshmen". How did they respond to that kind of prodding?
COACH CONRADT: In case you didn't understand that, last year's freshmen class came in very highly touted. They were the number one recruited class in the country and they believed that. And they had an attitude that made me think that they thought it was just going to happen, that their work ethic was not good, their focus was erratic and for the most part they didn't perform to potential. That was also compounded by the fact that a couple of them that were ready to play, were competitive and were talented enough to help got injured early.
So I have said to that group, you are re-freshmen. You have got to do this again because it wasn't the kind of performance that you should expect from yourself and not the kind of performance that's demanded if you are at the University of Texas. They have handled it well.
I think they have worked much harder. They have focused over the summer and in the off season and have come back with a new commitment and a better perspective of what's necessary to win.
That's also been helped by the influx of the real freshmen class. They have come in with a strong work ethic. They have come wanting to prove themselves and that has forced the sophomores as well to step it up.

Q. Jodi, which of the new freshmen would you expect to make the biggest impact?
COACH CONRADT: You know, I think all of them, there are four of them. And I think all of them will play. But two that will play right away will be Brittainey Raven who the coaches voted preseason freshman of the year. And she has that kind of potential. She is very motivated and driven player with a lot of energy. She is also very skilled. She is fast. She is quick. She has a good size. She is about six feet tall and plays on the perimeter. She has the ability to be a good player and I think will make a difference early. A player not quite as well-known as a player named Niqky Hughes. She has some of the same qualities Brittainey does. She is very competitive. She is all over the place with her energy and her effort and right now I believe that she will also play a lot.
The third player is a player named Kristen Nash. She has been slowed a little bit right now. She has an ankle injury that has kept out kept her out of some practice. She is a heady player. She loves to rebound and do the little things. I think all three of them, just their energy level and their work ethic will make us better.
A fourth one is a player named Gabriell Mattox. She is a player you might not notice right away. She is steady and she wants to be really good. So all of them, I think, have a chance to play. Brittainey, I would be forced -- hard-pressed not to think that all of them are going to get significant playing time.

Q. Jodi, Carla, last year, of what we saw of her was pretty phenomenal. It had to be tough to have her go on the shelf. What kind of shape is she in now? Do you feel she can be sort of the person who leads this team?
COACH CONRADT: I think Carla is one of the biggest keys and at the same time one of the biggest questions. She is recovering from knee injuries and you know that's not something that just one day you are recovering, the next day you are 100%. So she is transitioning back. She had a little muscle pull that slowed her a bit. She is still the most efficient player, the most headlines player, the most competitive player we have at the point position.
We know that's a key role that has to be filled. We are counting on her heavily. Her transition back from the surgery and being able to get into a full-scale practice day in and day out, that may not happen for a while because it doesn't typically with knee injuries. But she has to be there for us to be successful.

Q. Jodi, talk about Erika and what you are going to need from her this season?
COACH CONRADT: Erika had the hardest role of all of the freshman because we threw her on the court early and we depended on her for a lot of our scoring. She is really talented as a shooter. I don't think I have coached shooters that are as consistent as she is with her ability to score. As you saw last year, we made her stand on her head, twist up and down and do everything imaginable to be able to get a shot off because we weren't very good at helping her. And I am hopeful we will be a lot better.
She has come back with, again, a new focus and her intensity is excellent. She is working hard on every phase of her game, and she still is an incredible shooter. And I think you will see her have even more success as we learn how to help her in that role.

Q. Jodi, can you talk about the unanimous favorite Oklahoma and on top of that having to come to Oklahoma City and then hosting Big 12 tournament 30 miles away from their campus.
COACH CONRADT: From what I saw from Oklahoma last year, they don't need any advantages, so being close to home, at their tournament certainly generates a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for the tournament itself. I can't imagine there won't be a big turnout of people who will want to support their local team. And it hadn't happened previously, and I don't know whether it will happen again, that we will have a team go all the way through the conference schedule without a loss. That in itself is a strong statement about how good Oklahoma was.
We saw a player unlike most of the players in our game. Courtney Paris is unique. We haven't seen players with her size and mobility who could literally on the block as she does and that made Oklahoma really -- a difficult task to defend. I am sure they are going to come with the same kinds of mind-set. You like winning and you like being a champion. That in itself motivates you to improve and to come back and repeat. So they are there in my mind.
They are there in the mind of all the coaches as a favorite in this conference. All of us are still trying to figure out how to contend with players like Courtney and a player who is surrounded by other strong players and players who do other things really well.

Q. How about playing here in Oklahoma City?
COACH CONRADT: From what I have seen, I think Oklahoma is excited about hosting this event and the men's tournament. You want to have a lot of different experiences. You travel and being in a new environment is always fun and I think that there will be that in Oklahoma City just as there was for the first time that our teams went to Kansas City. It says to me that women's basketball is alive and well in Big 12. We have our choice of a lot of venues, a lot of venues that want to host the tournament and are capable of putting on a premium event and I suspect the same thing will happen here.

Q. Jodi, what about having Clarissa, one of the best players in the history of your program, now having her on the coaching staff and specifically how she can help a player like Tiffany and your young post players?
COACH CONRADT: We talked about the addition of the freshmen, but the most important addition to our team and our squad might be Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil. Most of you in this room know who she is and what she accomplished. And that is different from our players. I say about this generation, if it hasn't happened in the last ten minutes and it didn't happen to them, they don't know anything about it. But those of us who have been in women's basketball know what kind of player Clarissa Davis was. If you look at her experiences since those playing days, she played professionally in two leagues in this country. She played overseas in about four different countries.
She was the C.E.O. of a startup franchise in San Antonio and what people didn't know about her was that she was also teaching and coaching in summer leagues and on summer teams. She brings all of that experience to our program and I was very amused and excited to see what the players, how they responded the first time she walked -- into the gym. And I don't think they have taken their eyes off of her since that time because she demands that kind of respect, she is a wonderful teacher and the connection that she made immediately with our players, I think, will be evident over the course of the season.

Q. Jodi, we talked about the extremely successful OU. My question is about the opposite end of the spectrum, OSU, O-16, what does Kurt Budkey have to do to lead that program back to respect built?
COACH CONRADT: Well, I am not looking forward to my trip to Stillwater either. I know Kurt's history. I know he has been successful at every level and it takes time. He has done a great job recruiting and I think anybody that plays and follows what happens in this conference knows that you can't take anything for granted. I have had some of my tensest moments in Stillwater and I didn't feel comfortable the last time we were there.
I know they will be competitive, and I know they will be fighting to improve on what had to be a disappointing season for Kurt and his staff and his team as well. That's what competition is about. You see what the standard is and then you work really hard to get there. We have seen in this conference time and time again programs that were obscure, programs that might not have had a history in women's basketball but suddenly you're faced with the prospect of going and playing them and it is frightening.

Q. No surprise, you always have a pretty tough nonconference schedule. Generally you guys play the toughest of any Big 12 team. That's been the case several years in a row.
Talk about this young team playing. You have got Duke, Tennessee, Purdue, New Mexico, those are the names that stand out right away.
COACH CONRADT: I think we sort of figured out last year that we might have outdone ourselves with the schedule. I talked about last season being the perfect storm. Seven freshman, injuries and a tough, tough schedule. And we didn't cope with any of that very well. So we did try to temper the schedule a little bit. But I think you will still see Tennessee, you will still see Duke and going to New Mexico is no picnic.
We do have a tough schedule, but hopefully we can gain a little confidence and feel better about ourselves as we compete again the elite programs because I don't think you know what you have to do unless you face it. Just as I mentioned, where is the level of competition? We got to find our level and, hopefully, our level will be up there with some of the best teams in the country. Unless you go on the court with them, it is hard to know where you are and how you stack up.
PETER IRWIN: Coach, thank you very much. We wish you the best of luck for the season.
COACH CONRADT: I appreciate it.

End of FastScripts...

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