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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS

October 20, 2010

Kristy Curry

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

THE MODERATOR: We welcome Kristy Curry from Texas Tech University now. We will let Coach Curry make a couple of opening comments and then we will take questions.
COACH CURRY: We are extremely excited. For the first time we have everyone healthy. We have put our third class back to back to two other really good classes, so we are really excited about what this season holds.
Have a couple of transfers blended in with everyone back and healthy and our four freshmen. Again, we are extremely excited and looking forward to heading over this weekend for scrimmage and then opening up at New Mexico on November 12th.

Q. Can you talk about just getting to start practice a little bit early with the new rule this year and how you're scheduling things. Do you like the earlier start?
COACH CURRY: I love the earlier start for one year. I think that it allows you to take more of a poised approach where you can definitely give the kids more days off for more fun events. We are able to take Saturday off, our only home football game in October.
So for reasons along those lines, we are able to give our kids fall break for one of the first times. So those reasons, I think, it is extremely early. I think it is going to make for a really long season, so as coaches you kind of have to slow down and make sure that you give the kids a break along the way. But, you know, we have our 12th practice tomorrow, obviously going to Canada. We had ten practices with our upperclassmen and five with our freshmen. So we feel like we really have had a great jump-start to our season with the Canadian tour blended in with the fact we got it started a little earlier.
I also like the fact that the first week of October everyone gets tired of your conditioning coach. That gets old. So being able to put the ball in their hands, you can tell they have enjoyed that aspect of it. So there are positives and negatives.
But overall, we are really excited about having 15 bodies out there and that we've gotten to take a chance also to take a deep breath and give them a Saturday off and give them fall break.
They seem a lot happier when they come to practice.

Q. Do you think the Rangers can do it tonight?
COACH CURRY: I'm a little worried about C.C. Sabathia. I actually was married to a Ranger season ticket holder when we first got married, but he doesn't have season tickets in Lubbock. We did get a chance to see them play three or four times this summer. But a big Rangers fan in my house. I hope they win tonight, but I feel good if they don't. They get to go back to Texas.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about your upperclassmen this year and what you expect from them in terms of leadership. You have a lot of young players that need to learn the reins.
COACH CURRY: We are definitely a young basketball team. We don't see that as a negative. We don't see the fact that you may say that's inexperience. We started three freshmen at the end of the season with Monique Smalls and Chynna Brown and Christine Hyde.
But I am so pleased with our leadership. Jordan Barncastle, Kierra Mallard, Lindie Kimbro are all juniors. They really have taken on a leadership role. They have embraced that role. That's part of the reason they came to Texas Tech. They understood the situation they were inheriting. And you couldn't have a better leader in Barncastle. Someone that certainly is the kind of role model and also vocal leader. She leads by her actions. She is a tough, hard-nosed country girl, so that fits well into Lubbock.
Really pleased as well to have Monique Smalls, our point guard, who is a great leader. Both of them are with me today. They are an action vocal workaholics. Those are great leaders for us. We have one senior, Teena Wickett who I think will possibly maybe be the newcomer of the year by the time we get to March. I realize probably no one has a clue who she is or what she's about. I think she too will provide some leadership because she is so hungry to play.
So I think we're good in the leadership role even though we are a very young basketball team. We are very experienced. We have been through a lot. They will thrive upon their past experiences and we have had a great off-season.

Q. I know Nebraska last year kind of showed what their recruiting and what they're building toward could finally come to. Do you feel like you guys with another top 100 coming in November and the good recruiting class you have this year will get you to that point pretty quickly?
COACH CURRY: Well, I will say I have so much respect for Connie and how she has built that Nebraska program. She is certainly an inspiration to me being in the situation we were in and seeing her in her seventh -- I think it was her seventh, eighth year being able to accomplish that Big 12 title. It takes time in this league.
You know, it takes back-to-back-to-back classes. I love our sophomore class. It is special. We were able to back up that junior class with Jordan and Kierra and Lindie and then we were able to sign, you know, a couple of players in this freshmen class now with Kelsi Baker who was a top 100 prospect, Ebony Walker out of Sandy and Albuquerque, and probably the surprise of the class, a young lady out of Clovis, Antiesha Brown has been amazingly surprising to me as far as how much she has adapted to the system so quickly.
And then Haley Schneider at 6' 6", a local prospect for us, who has a long tradition with her mom being in the Hall of Fame and playing at Tennessee.
So, you know, those four really get it and have really backed up. And then we will sign another top 100 prospect in November. We only have one spot. That's what it takes, especially in the Big 12 South.
THE MODERATOR: You had an injury last year and she sat out. Tell me about her progress.
COACH CURRY: Shauntal Nobles really would have been a big presence for us inside. We don't look back on that. She really embellished the situation last year and put herself in a position to learn the system. And she looks great. She really has impressed me as far as how she has responded just being a first-year player. She's going to play an awful lot of minutes and be able to play Kierra a few less minutes.

End of FastScripts

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