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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS (WOMEN)

October 28, 2010

Pam Borton

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

PAM BORTON: Well, we're really excited to get our season started and excited about my returning players. I really like this team. In the past couple weeks of practice, they're a fun team to coach, they work extremely hard. There's a lot of intensity in practice, and I'm a coach where what you see in practice is what you're going to see in a game. Just the intensity level, the effort level, and that's what I've been very, very excited to see, a lot of improvement.
We've got three starters returning from last year in China Antoine. She is our point guard, earned a starting position towards the middle of the season last year and went down with a knee injury in the middle of January, but she's healthy and mentally, physically ready to go, which we're excited to have her back.
And then Kiara Buford is also -- she was our leading scorer from last year, returning, as well. Really improved her game, her leadership, and she's rearing to go.
And then Jackie Voigt is our other starter, starting at the power forward position, and we're really excited about the leadership that they bring and their experience.
And then with our young freshman class and everyone else that really has a lack of experience has really improved over the summer and through the preseason, and we're really excited about this team and what we can accomplish this season.

Q. After sort of a disappointing finish from last year, do you feel like you've had to sort of change the culture in any way to get this team back on the winning track?
PAM BORTON: Yeah, I felt like we lost a little bit of the culture last year. I think one out of the many things that I learned last year was how much one player means to your team, and two years ago we graduated Emmy Fox, and just her being a playmaker at the point and just really what she brought to the team and how she made everybody better on the floor, and we didn't have that kid last year. People say, well, you're only graduating one player, but that one player really meant a tremendous amount to our team with her being a playmaker and making everybody better.
China really turned into that kid during the year, and very, very unexpected when she went down that we really didn't kind of pick up the slack with some of the others. But out of many things in a program, there is a lot of changes, a lot of things need to be made, and you just kind of look at things differently to kind of get yourselves back on track.

Q. Do you think Kiara Buford can kind of do some of the things that Emily Fox did? You talked about using her a little bit at point. Can she be that playmaker for you?
PAM BORTON: I'm not sure if that's one of Kiara's strengths is being a playmaker. I think Kiara is a scorer. I think there's a lot of different ways that Kiara can score maybe a little bit better than Emmy did. But I think Kiara has matured over the year as far as being a go-to player in certain situations in a game, consistency, her leadership, just taking responsibility and accountability. But I think a playmaker is a special type of player that really can help make others better.
I think Kiara is, like I said, more of a scorer. But I think a year ago it was a fine line, as well, where we lost, I think, four games, and we had the game won and didn't get a defensive stop or a rebound, and those four games put you in the top four of the Big Ten. So I think it's just a fine line and trying to figure out a way to finish basketball games, as well.

Q. A couple of transitions in terms of your staff. How has that affected this team, for that to happen once the season had already started?
PAM BORTON: Well, I think that position is really replaceable as far as that's concerned, but losing one of your top assistant coaches right before practice starts, there's never a good time to lose an assistant, especially a good assistant, if it's in the summer, spring, whenever it is. But one thing for our program that has been very consistent and stable has been our players. It's been practice. It's been what we've been able to accomplish basketball-wise in the gym, and that's been awesome.
But I think things happen for a reason, and I think change is always a good thing, and we're moving forward.

Q. After a couple of weeks of practice, do you have a good sense of what your rotation is going to look like? Can you talk about some of the new players that you think will be a part of that?
PAM BORTON: I think a lot of the young kids are young, they're working hard, I think they're learning. I think the rotation is becoming a lot clearer every day. If you asked me four or five days ago I would have said absolutely not. But there's still a couple positions with people coming off the bench -- I think this team has a high ceiling, has a lot of room for growth. I thought last year we were who we were because we were so -- we had such a veteran-laden team and I just felt like there wasn't a lot of room for growth or improvement. But the rotation is becoming a lot more clear and there are a couple spots that are still being observed.

Q. Does anyone stand out among your recruiting classes or a player that you've seen in practice that has really surprised you and impressed you?
PAM BORTON: I think the one player that's really come along in the last week has been a player that finished pretty strong toward the end of the year was Katie Loberg. She's 6'4", a lot of athleticism, probably one of the fastest players on our team at 6'4", and I think it's been a breath of fresh air to be able to watch her grow and do the things that she's been able to do, especially in the post. We weren't able to get a lot of offense in our post for the last couple years. That's something that we've been really stressing, and it's been nice to see her. We've got three out of our four freshmen that are probably going to help us out right away. We're trying to speed up the learning curve for them a little bit just because of their versatility and what they're going to be able to bring us down the road.

End of FastScripts

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