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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS (WOMEN)October 27, 2011Kevin BorsethCHICAGO, ILLINOIS KEVIN BORSETH: First of all, I'd like to thank the media for coming today to support us. You guys are our voice to the public, and certainly Big Ten is really a committed and very together conference, and we're certainly very proud of that, and we're proud to be a part of that. We're excited to get the season started. Last year we won 17 games and were a little short of getting in the NCAA Tournament and something that our players are very determined to get back to this year. Practices have been going really well, and I guess that's where we're going to start. I'll open to any questions. Q. (No microphone). KEVIN BORSETH: We're really a program that really is not a star-ridden program. Everything is kind of balanced, and over the course of my career I think we've had all of our teams pretty balanced. I think we've got to get scoring from every area. Courtney, Carmen, Rachel Sheffer had a great year last year in scoring. We've got probably eight or nine kids we think could play in different capacities. I think our biggest thing now at the end of the shot clock, who do you give the ball to? I know last year we gave it to Ronnie a little bit with some of those screen but Courtney was involved, as well. But I think we're pretty much a balanced team. We always have been. Q. (No microphone). KEVIN BORSETH: Well, could be Nya, could be Courtney, could be Brenae Harris, the freshman from Marion, Ohio. Generally your point guards are kids that run in that situation, kids that get involved. Q. Could you talk about the transitionary phase right now within the conference. A lot of really quality post players have graduated and it's starting to get back to a little bit of a guard league. Where do you think that is right now in terms of what this season is going to be like in terms of post play versus guard play? KEVIN BORSETH: It was interesting that the three players we put up for All-American nomination and Player of the Year were all guards, Samantha Prahalis, Jaime Printy and Alex Bentley were the three kids we put up, so it was interesting to see that. Kind of caught you off guard, especially all the big kids we had last year. That's really a good question. Somebody asked me before where our conference was, what type of conference we were, where the strength lied. I think there's a lot of good teams in this conference. I know with the big kid from Ohio State being gone, that we maybe got one of those post players this year that's got that capability. But I think every one of the players certainly relies on those kids. I think the game has really opened up a little bit, and because it's opened up it's given a lot more ability for those players with a lot of skills on the perimeter to put the ball on the floor a little more, the luxury of being able to take it to the basket a little bit. Q. You addressed some of the rule changes that are going to happen with the arc and then the three-point line and what kind of impact you think that'll have on the women's game? KEVIN BORSETH: It's kind of interesting if you watch the three-point line from all your videotapes, for the most part, all of us were shooting the ball from beyond that arc anyway. When I was with Green Bay we went overseas, I want to say about four, five, six years ago, and the international arc was out there and never seemed to bother. So I don't know if the players are really going to notice that when they go down. I don't think before the game they're going to say, gee, the arc is nine inches further, so that's going to be a big thing. So I guess moving it back really made it easier on the floor because those two lines were pretty confusing from that perspective. That little smiley face underneath the basket, I don't know. A couple years ago we added a rule for whatever reason, the coaches wanted to get away from players being able to take charges underneath that basket, and for some reason they allowed that to happen, and there always seems to be a two-year hiatus on these rule changes when they make them, kind of like the spin move, where you can't spin and not get called for a travel. And there was charging underneath the basket that they allowed, and it really wasn't what the coaches had wanted. So they put the arc in that made it consistent with the men's game, which I guess makes sense. But if you watch the videotape and take a look at it, you'll scratch your head at a couple of those demonstrations on whether the kids standing in that box actually are in legal guarding position or not. But it is what it is. I guess you don't want kids to take charges underneath the basket. It already has the ability to be pretty volatile game anyway with all the collisions. We certainly don't want to add any more. Q. When you look at last year, what is the one thing that you say -- I mean, you can't fix everything. I know every coach wishes they could, but if there's one thing this season that you said, this has to change if we're going to produce 20 wins this year, what is it? KEVIN BORSETH: You know, we've been -- I think we're relatively consistent when we play on both ends of the court. I think our kids generally play extremely hard. They play together, and they're very intelligent. They've got a high intelligent team. They play smart. I think that consistency is good to have, but I think we've got to have the ability to get to another level. I think that's the thing you have to be able to do. You have to be able to go over the top, and I don't know that we've really done that. We did that last year. We played really good basketball, really sound, solid basketball, but just never really got over the top with it. I think that's an area that we've got to get a little better at this year. Q. You guys have to be coming back with higher expectations from a player standpoint with the success that you had last year, how has that translated into practices so far? KEVIN BORSETH: You know, you can tell when those kids are on the court how much more together they are. I think that probably is -- they know each other a little bit better, they learn what each other's strengths and weaknesses are so they can feed off them or guard against them, if you will. I just think after last year, the season ending the way it did and the success that we had early on, it probably is eating in their bellies on the inside, I'm certain that to be the case. But they really are -- in practice they've taken a little bit more -- they're a little more intense in practice. Things have a little bit greater sense of urgency than they have in the past, where generally there was just one or two of those with a greater sense of urgency, that sense of urgency has kind of spread to a lot more players, which is good. So I think they feel it. I think their expectation level is really high within themselves, and that's a good place for it to be. Q. Changes to Crisler, how has that impacted you, your team? And you're smiling, so it must be good. KEVIN BORSETH: Yeah, it's really nice. I keep telling everybody the same thing: It's hard to imagine that you could paint the ceiling black and it would brighten the place up. But all new seats, new scoreboard, it just looks clean, and I guess that's what you expect when you think of a major university and the Big Ten and the facility that we have. It's an unbelievable facelift that Crisler has gotten and of course now our play development center, we just moved into our offices this past week, and it's probably 80 to 90 percent complete at this point. Right now they're putting the floor in for it, and our players haven't seen it yet. We're going to take them in next week, so it's going to be one of those reality shows, home makeover reality shows or something like that because it is absolutely phenomenal. I walked in and it's like you can't even speak because your mouth is open and you look at it and say, wow, this is absolutely unbelievable. So we're -- it's like driving a new car, you get in every day and you feel really good. But you can't dent it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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