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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS (WOMEN)October 27, 2011Bobbie KelseyCHICAGO, ILLINOIS BOBBIE KELSEY: Just delighted to be here representing Wisconsin. We've been in practice now for 18 practices. We've had 18 practices. I know that because I changed the number on the practice plan every day. But we're working really hard to put in the things that we feel will help us be successful, and the players are really excited about the opportunity that they will have to showcase their skills. Q. Obviously coming in as a new coach, one of the toughest things to do is to get the players to gel and to get them to buy into your system. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being they absolutely have bought in, this is going to be great, we're going to win a championship; on the scale of 1 to 10 thus far where do you think you are in terms of that kind of success? BOBBIE KELSEY: An 11. Q. Excellent. BOBBIE KELSEY: Yes, and I don't say that lightly because I've been a part of other new staffs that have come in, and you don't always have that buy-in. You really don't. When I first spoke with the team before I addressed the media at the press conference to announce my hiring, I told them there's always one. There's always one somewhere in the bunch that will not get on board, so I hope there's no one like that in the room because it will be a short stay. I don't know if they were like that before or if somebody was in there before and then they decided to get on board, but I haven't had the issues of kids not complying or doing what's asked. I've just been blessed. They're not angels, they're not perfect, but they have all bought in. They've all decided that they didn't get a vote about who would be their head coach, they did not ask them their opinion, but they got lucky. I've been able to bring the experiences of my past, most recently at Stanford University, with four Final Fours in four years, so I think they believe that I may know one or two things about playing basketball. Q. When you take over a program, in your mind you know what as a coach maybe you want to do eventually. What will you be able to do this year? What will your system be as far as offensively and defensively? BOBBIE KELSEY: Offensively I think the players that are returning did not have an opportunity for whatever reason to showcase their individual skills. Obviously when you lose 61 percent of your scoring, there's some concern about who will be able to step in and fill the void. But they are Division I basketball players, and they were recruited to play basketball, so I take that as an opportunity for them to then step in and showcase what they can do. Obviously all of them have to be able to shoot and make a shot. You don't have kids out there that can't shoot or be a threat because then they're not guarded. So I think they like that because who doesn't like to score. All the kids I've ever coached loved to score. I've never seen one that did not. So all of them have an opportunity. I tell them if they don't shoot and they're open, that's going to hurt our team. So they get in the gym, they work on their shot, and obviously the conditioning from my past where I've been, Stanford, they've always been known for conditioning, and I think that the kids at Wisconsin, this is new for them. They have not been pushed to the places that I've been pushing them, but I say it's only going to make us better because we don't want to play a half-court game. We do want to get up and down the floor. Not quick shots, not bad shots, but push the pace and the tempo offensively and then play smart on the defensive end, really play scouting report defense. If someone can't shoot, you may not be as close to them. If they can, you guard them. We might have to double in the post, things like that, that we did at Stanford, and it was very successful. I don't want to give it all away, not that there's any secrets, but we're looking to do certain things to keep people out of foul trouble, to preserve our energy, so to speak. But these kids are ready to go, they really are. Q. You've had to obviously come in, assess your talent, one big chore, but the other big chore is assessing this conference. What do you see in terms of this conference of where your strengths can be or some areas that you think we will be challenged? BOBBIE KELSEY: Strength-wise, I think that me being new and the system being new and the players that were there previously, the scorers, so to speak, that are graduated, maybe people don't know that much about what we'll do. That's kind of the unknown. It's good sometimes because people can't prepare as much for your team and maybe the expectation is that they don't have a lot, so they don't take you very seriously. I don't know that to be true, I'm just making generalizations. But as far as the Big Ten Conference, it's a really rich women's basketball conference. A lot of the teams have done really well over the past years, have gotten to the Final Four championships, obviously Purdue winning championships. But for Wisconsin it's an opportunity for us to then really maybe sneak up on some people, maybe achieve what others think we can't. So I think the girls are really excited about it, and they have an opportunity to showcase what they can do. They're very excited about that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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