|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: BATON ROUGEMarch 21, 2008Lisa EtienneDanielle HoodKatie KelleyJennifer RizzottiBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA THE MODERATOR: Hartford, welcome to Baton Rouge and to the tournament here. We have Katie Kelley, student athlete; student athlete, Danielle Hood; student athlete, Lisa Etienne; and the coach, Coach Jen residing. Opening statements, Coach? COACH RIZZOTTI: Thank you. We appreciate the welcome to Baton Rouge. So far so good. We hear it's snowing up at Connecticut or close to it. Happy to be here in the warm weather, and the hospitality has been great. There's nothing like playing in a NCAA tournament. We're excited about it. But fortunately for us we have kids on the podium and a couple of kids in the locker room that have been here before and have an understanding of what it takes to win a game at this level and, I think, are prepared to put the work in to try to do that. So we have a great first-round opponent. And the Syracuse team, they're tough, they're athletic. They're determined after coming off the first round loss in the Big East tournament, so we know have our work cut out for us. But we certainly feel like we have the experience, and we're prepared for that. Q. I just wanted to talk to the players and also, Jen, about your experience two years ago in the tournament and how much that will affect tomorrow's game. KATIE KELLEY: Since it has been a year since we made the NCAA tournament, it is really great to be here. I think the main thing we learned is keep your composure. Anything can happen in the tournament. Just stay focused and stay calm and just bring your A game. LISA ETIENNE: Well, I wasn't playing two years ago when they made it to the NCAA tournament, but I was able to sit back and watch and it was just -- I was very excited and anxious to get here and now that I'm here, I just want to feel what they felt a couple years ago. Q. Katie, talk about matching up with Syracuse and what was your reaction when the brackets came out and you saw that you guys were going to face Syracuse. KATIE KELLEY: I was pretty excited. I am from Syracuse, right from in the city. As soon as it said Syracuse-Hartford, everybody turned at looked at me and I was like, "yes," because I have been wanting to see them since I was a freshman. We tried to get games and stuff. I am excited to play them. I wish we could play Syracuse at Syracuse. It is gorgeous down in Louisiana, so what's better? But I'm real excited. I know a couple of girls on the team. I think it will be pretty fun. Q. She alluded to it, Coach Q was a little bit miffed that the papers had been saying that no scheduled game in the regular season could be worked out and that might have been noticed by you guys and this was a game that maybe you guys would -- could get some revenge there. What do you think about that? COACH RIZZOTTI: Well, I don't know where that came from. We m have called up there to try to get a game in Syracuse for Katie for her senior year, which is next year, and it hasn't been worked out. They're not on our schedule. So it's not coming on our end. Let's just keep it to that. This has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with playing Syracuse. It was just a matter of trying to get a home game for our seniors, which we do every year. So whether it was just the timing thing or just wasn't right, we just -- we couldn't work that out. So, you know, when it comes down to matchups, you're just -- you're more focused on who you're playing and what you have to do to win and advance to the next round and, you know, whether we play them at Syracuse or play them in Baton Rouge doesn't really matter to us. We're just excited to be here and for the opportunity to be back in the NCAA tournament. Q. I'm just curious, what's it like -- you're in a state that's so dominated by UConn. They're right next to you. Your coach is one of their most famous players. How do you build your own identity, carve out your identity as a program? KATIE KELLEY: Our coaching staff is great, and because of that, we're a pretty good team. I feel like we have so many fans that are very supportive of us in Hartford and just as a community. You would be surprised to know that there are a lot of people in Connecticut that are Hartford fans over UConn. We do have a supporting crew behind us. KATIE KELLEY: I think we also make a name for ourselves by beating team that nobody expects us to beat, like when we beat Michigan State this year, we have gone and beat BYU and then we won the Hawaii tournament. Winning games helps us make a name for ourselves in Connecticut. Q. Jennifer, this is a question for you. A few years ago when you were in Syracuse playing at the Manley Fieldhouse, I think, your senior year, you came up on the losing end. COACH RIZZOTTI: You really have to bring that up, right? Q. What can you tell us about that game, if you remember? COACH RIZZOTTI: Well, it was one of my four losses in my entire senior year. So when you don't lose a lot, it is not something that you forget very easily. I just remember that the team they had was a really good team that year. They played really well and it wasn't like it is most of the time when you go up to Syracuse. It was rainy and sleety and snowy, and I remember we were trying to charter home and they were having a problem deicing the plane and there was absolutely no more miserable of a time to be sitting on a plane when we had just lost the game waiting to go home. So it doesn't erase from my memory very easily. It was one of the lower points of my senior year. But I don't think we lost after that game until the Final Four. So every now and then -- you know, every coach will say this. Sometimes a loss is a wake-up call and gets you prepared for what's ahead. Certainly with this team. I think we understand how good Syracuse is, and I respect them a lot. This year's team and what they've accomplished, you know, that they're pretty hungry because it has been a while since they've been to the NCAA tournament, so we're certainly, you know, prepared for the challenge. Like I said earlier, we know it's going to be a tough one. Q. Could you elaborate a little bit on what experience does for your team and maybe how you handle it differently now than you did when you were first in the tournament? COACH RIZZOTTI: Yeah. Well, with this group, you know, Danielle was a freshman, you know, with this group's first time in the NCAA tournament, our second overall. I remember we were a 15 or 14 -- 14 seed. I was eight months pregnant. I was praying they didn't send us anywhere far so I could make the trip, and they sent us up the road to UConn. I remember our kids were a little disappointed because they wanted to go away. But, you know, having to play as a 14 seed, usually you're getting a top-ten program and Rutgers was a very formidable opponent, even at that time. And I think our kids were just kind of excited about being there. We were excited about seeing our name on the screen, and it was the first time for that group. And then the following year, there was just such a much bigger sense of purpose like, "All right, last year was for fun; this year is business." When we went down to Trenton, it was business. We were -- we prepared for Temple, like we were going to beat Temple. And we were preparing for the NCAA tournament like it was another tournament we were playing in. As a coach, it was much more fun to be a part of that because you felt like your kids really understood what it meant -- they appreciated being in the tournament, but they understood what it meant putting the hard work into try to win a game. And so I feel like those -- that nucleus of players, Danielle was a sophomore and Erica Beverly and Katie were a freshman and MaryLynne Schaefer, they've been here before. They understand it is fun and, yeah, the weather's great and we're going to have a good time while we're here but there's a sense of purpose and what we're trying to accomplish. We understand after last year's failure to get to the NCAA tournament that you can never take it for granted and you can never waste an opportunity because it's such a long time before you have a chance to get back. And so I think this group wants to make sure that they won't waste this opportunity and that they are ready to go tomorrow. Q. I want you to talk about the defensive intensity that you guys had in the conference tournament and has that carried over this week in practices. Do you think that will carry over until tomorrow? COACH RIZZOTTI: I think it will. I think that's what we built the last month of our season around, is our defense and our rebounding and trying to really limit what people do. I think it's a little different when our players are not as familiar with our opponent, the way that they were familiar -- we were playing everybody in the America East tournament for the third time, so tendencies and player personnel, it was like we didn't even have to go through the scouting report and they knew what we were supposed to be doing. So tomorrow will be a little bit different. It will take us a little time to adjust to what Syracuse players like to do. You know, they have so many good one-on-one players that that sometimes can take you off guard in terms of trying to figure out what players like to do best and what kind of shots we want to force. And then plus they're relentless on the offensive glass. You know, that's something that, again, you can work on it, you can tell them about it, you can show them on film. But until you're in the heat of the battle, it is hard to prepare for that. So I think it's going to probably take us a few minutes or even a half to get adjusted to what Syracuse likes to do. Plus, I think their defensive intensity is something we will have to adjust more so than anybody was able to do to us in our tournament. So on that end of the floor, valuing the basketball and handling their pressure on the ball or in a trap situation is going to be -- half to be something we adjust to as well. It is hard to stimulate that and know what's coming until you've played it. So that is a disadvantage for us and for them, when you're not as familiar. But at the same time, I think it is exciting to finally be able to play somebody that we haven't played three times already this year. Q. Katie, you spoke about knowing some of the girls on the Syracuse team. Can you talk about Cintia Johnson, the matchups you had with her in high school and maybe looking back on it a little bit. KATIE KELLEY: Me and Cintia are pretty close. We talked three or four times so far. She was the cross-town rival, Corcoran-Nottingham. We were always 1-2, 2-1. Ended up she always won by one point or shot clock buzzer, usually at the end of the year. We always won the regular season, you know, game and they always won in the tournament. So I mean, it is going to be exciting to see her. I know what she is all about. I am real excited to play her again. COACH RIZZOTTI: And they played AAU together. KATIE KELLEY: We played AAU. We were on the same team. We played this summer at the Empire State Games together. It was fun. Q. Two questions, Coach, then Danielle. First, Coach, Big East tremendously deep this year, 12 teams playing now, I think in the post-season with the NIT. And Syracuse is a team that's just had this recent success. You alluded to it before but, how do you kind of prepare for this team? They're very tall. They're deep. And this is kind of a new success to the program. So, you know, recent success Syracuse, new up-and-coming teams kind a few years ago, how Hartford was. How has that gone? COACH RIZZOTTI: Well, I think that, you know, it is different if you're new and up-and-coming and you sneak into the tournament as a 14 seed and when you have a great season, you beat -- knock off some of the best teams in the Big East and you get in as a 7 seed. You know, this is not a team that's just happy to be in the NCAA tournament. Their kids are very focused. Along the lines of what Katie said, we've watched a lot of their players in AAU. We recruited some of their players. There's a lot of familiarity with what they're capable of. We've seen them a lot on film, and this isn't, like, a new bunch of freshman, an inexperienced team. The way they've been able to pull together as a group and play together, you would think they've been playing together for a couple years. You know, that's a compliment to what they've been able to accomplish in a short period of time. So they're certainly going to play with a lot of intensity. They're used to playing with intensity every single night when they have to come out in the Big East schedule. They got West Virginia one night, Rutgers the next and Louisville on the road. So they know what it's like to have to come out with intensity every night. Our kids are going to have to challenge themselves to be able to match that. Q. For Danielle and Katie, as far as the depth in the post, they're very, very big. Again, like a team like West Virginia or Pittsburgh or Connecticut that they played routinely throughout the season, this is going to be, I think, a pretty tough task and pretty demanding on Hartford's post players, where you arguably have the most depth. That would be the biggest challenge of the game, I would think. Danielle? DANIELLE HOOD: They do have good post players. At the same time we have really good post players, too. I feel like we can go deep. There is a lot of us on the team that Coach Rizz can turn to. When one person is tired, she takes them out and puts in another person. I think she does a really good job of playing everybody so we're not as tired during the game. I mean, there have been many teams we have played during the year where the post players are good and we just come together and we beat them. COACH RIZZOTTI: Once of reasons we played the nonconference schedule we did was to prepare for this moment. Maybe the teams in the America East don't get us ready for a first-round NCAA tournament game. But certainly Michigan State and Virginia who is a 4 seed and Marist who is a 7 seed, those games -- UConn who is a 1 seed overall, those are the games that prepare us for this moment. That's why we play them. Whether we win or lose, it gives our players the experience that they will need this time of year. I'm really confident that our kids will be able to handle whatever is thrown at them because we've, you know, hopefully over the last two, three, four years put them in a position to be successful. Q. Jen, everyone points in the women's tournament to this -- pretty much the same cast of teams that can be contenders and stuff like that. I'm sure you still have a soft spot in your heart for your alma mater in some ways. Is women's basketball, to take that next step in popularity, have to have more teams that can contend more? Or is it still get good for Tennessee and Connecticut to carry on this Red Sox-Yankees rivalry like they have every year? COACH RIZZOTTI: It definitely doesn't hurt the game when UConn and Tennessee match up. Especially with all the tuck and the hub-bub about them not playing in the regular season. If that were to be the national championship game, I'm sure there wouldn't be a higher rating. No offense to anybody else, but I just feel like that's what everybody would love to see. At the same time, I think when you listen to the commentators and you listen to people around women's basketball, you know, there is a sense that there's six, seven, eight teams maybe that have an opportunity to win. And I'm not sure that was the case four, five years ago where it seemed like it was always UConn or Tennessee. So, you know, I feel like, yeah, we are moving toward that point. I do think it is good for the women's game to grow that there are more rivalries and there are more players that have familiar faces around the country and it's kind of about everybody and that people are looking forward to seeing some upsets in the NCAA tournament because they just don't happen as frequently on the women's side as there is on the men's side. Q. To that end, again, comparing to the men's tournament, everybody is talking this year, who is the next George Mason, the double-digit seed that might come out of nowhere to make the Final Four? Do you want to be in that category of a program that's trying to improve? Do you want your players to dream of that? COACH RIZZOTTI: Yeah. Q. Making it to Tampa? Do you talk about it? Do you focus on it? Obviously, Syracuse is a big first-round game you have to win the first one. Do you want them to dream that way? COACH RIZZOTTI: I don't want them to sell themselves short and think they're not capable of beating somebody. We take one game at a time no matter what and certainly one weekend at a time. But, you know, the kids are at a point now where they're confident enough to know that we've -- like I said, we've played some of the best teams in the country and sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but we're putting ourselves in a position to learn what we have to do to compete at that level. And it's much more rare to see a double-digit seed advance to the Sweet Sixteen on the women's side. It is. But I think certainly Marist and I think maybe Bowling Green last year -- I am not sure what seed this were -- they proved there are some mid-major programs out there that deserve to have respect and deserve to continuing to play in the post-season regardless if they get an automatic bid or not. So I do think that the time is coming where there is more double-digit teams upsetting first round and maybe second round opponents, but I'm not so sure that we can get carried away at this point that they're going to be able to go through four teams probably two of the top-ranked teams in the country and get to a Final Four. But I certainly wouldn't want our kids to ever think that that wasn't possible if we played the perfect game on the perfect night. Q. Katie, did you catch an elbow here? KATIE KELLEY: Yeah, I got a cut on my chin. Q. Did that happen in practice getting ready for this game? KATIE KELLEY: Yeah, practice. COACH RIZZOTTI: We've been bruising each other up, so.... Q. You also understand the significance of your number in Syracuse. How did that -- 44 is probably the most famous number at Syracuse in football. How did that happen? How did you come to get that number? KATIE KELLEY: I had it in high school. I just -- it just kind of happened in high school and I get reminded daily 44, football, all that stuff. And then when I came to college, Liz Stitch (phonetic), she was a senior -- when I was coming as a freshman, she graduated and I got it because I had it in high school. I was just lucky enough to get it. So ... COACH RIZZOTTI: If Katie doesn't have a bruise on her face somewhere, then that means she hasn't been playing or practicing. So we like it when she is beat up a little bit. Thanks for being here and covering the team. We're looking forward to a great weekend. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|