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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS (WOMEN)October 27, 2011Sunny SmallwoodCHICAGO, ILLINOIS SUNNY SMALLWOOD: First of all, as you can see, I'm not Coach Yori. I'm sure that's who you would like to expect up here, but considering her circumstances with her issues with her recent knee surgery, I am replacing her today. She is doing better, just so you know, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about her health. But she's doing better and at practices now, and we're happy to have her back and her bark back, as well, and we're excited about that. But in terms of this season and what we're excited about is the fact that we have a tremendous point guard that's going to be leading us this season, and we're going to be also returning Lindsey Moore at that position, who will be leading us, and I'm sure for any of you who have followed us in the Big 12 know that she was an honorable mention pick in the Big 12. And then we also have a returner in Jordan Hooper, who was an All-Freshman pick for us, as a sophomore this year returning. And then we also have another young lady named Kaitlyn Burke, who's going to be a fifth-year senior in our program who's going to be a tremendous leader for us this year, which we're very excited about, because with our young team, that's going to be a crucial thing for us. We do have four tremendous incoming freshmen who were a top-25 recruiting class that are going to provide some impact for us, and we're very pleased about that. So on behalf of Coach Yori, I'd like to open it up for questions. Q. Do you expect Connie To be coaching the first exhibition, and when do you expect her back on the sidelines? And how have you guys managed without her? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: To answer your first question, yes, we do expect her to be on the sidelines coaching that first exhibition game. We are all in the process of determining how that's going to be. She's currently on the sidelines in practice, either on crutches or in a little cart, if you will, and so she kind of zooms around on this little cart or on crutches. So far she hasn't taken anybody out, which is nice. So we're currently determining -- we know she can't sit on the bench because she doesn't have a lot of flexion, which is partly why she's not here today, she can't travel. So we're determining whether she'll be standing kind of at the front of the bench next to the scorer table or possibly on that little cart maybe under the scorer table right away. But she definitely will be coaching that first game. At practices it's been great. We have such an amazingly driven team. We have a great group of leaders. As I mentioned already, Kaitlyn Burke, our fifth-year senior, also Harleen Sidhu is a returner, who's given us great leadership, even though she's not quite cleared but almost cleared from a PCL injury. And then also Lindsey Moore, who is providing tremendous leadership and stepping up her leadership I might add. Even though we're young, the kids are passionate, they're driven, they know where they're headed, and I might also add that the staff has ben incredibly engaged in doing their jobs in a very top-notch way. Q. You're obviously brand new to the conference. What is your assessment of the Big Ten Conference overall, of these teams, and how does that compare to where you're coming from, from the Big 12? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: First of all, we are very honored to become a part of the Big Ten conference. You know, to come from the esteemed Big 12 and then enter the amazing tradition of the Big Ten Conference, we couldn't be more excited. I mean, it's going from one great conference to another great conference. Having had eight teams in the Big Ten make it to postseason last year, tremendous representation, and it sounds like they're on track. What we know of them so far is mostly what we know on paper. Obviously we haven't had the opportunity to do a lot of video, a lot of scouts or anything like that yet, but on paper there is a lot of class, and they return a lot of top-notch players. So we know it's going to be a tough conference, and we're extremely excited about the fact that it's going to be very competitive. We feel like we're going to fit in and we're going to compete very nicely. Q. I'm going to help your scouting report a little bit. It's a very guard, guard-oriented conference, a lot of really, really strong guards, but obviously having graduated some post players that were key in a lot of areas, it kind of leaves a lot of people to question just how strong we'll be in the post. How do you consider your team? How does Nebraska kind of fit into that landscape? And what are you looking for in terms of playing the game from the inside out? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: You know, if I were to tell you about Nebraska, which is really fun for us, we, too, are -- we're fast and we're versatile, so we're going to probably be guard-oriented, if you will, but our post players are going to be -- they're going to be fast and versatile. We're not a big team by any means, but what we do have inside, again, I will just say, again, fast and versatile. They can play inside, they can play outside, and so that's going to be the style of our game. It's going to be up tempo, offensively and defensively, and that's how we plan to attack. Q. Last year was kind of a transition year for you guys after graduating Kelsey Griffin and Yvonne Turner, a lot of young players got experience. What did you learn about your team through last season that will help them from a confidence standpoint this season? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: I think that it was a little bit about what we learned about our team and what our team learned about us as a staff, and that is Coach Yori, she is a person of toughness, a person who is going to expect a great effort, and of course she recruits players of great character, and that's the team that we developed throughout the last season. And then when you put this new group of freshmen with the team that we really worked on developing last season, I think that that's the group that you're going to see when we put on the floor this year. That's the seasoning we're hoping to put out there. Until you put them out there you don't know how it's going to pay off. Of course we're hoping that the foreign tour will help us with our chemistry, bringing them all together. We're still going to be extremely young, so that's always a fun-filled adventure. But we're excited about them, and we're enjoying coaching them, and so that's what we're looking at. Q. You guys had a summer tour. Talk about what you learned from your team, how that will help you going into the season and into these practices. And also, what have you seen from Jordan Hooper improve from last year to this year? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: I think from the minute we took the court going into the summer, we gotten days of practice, of course, for the summer tour, and we utilized that very well. We had two-a-days for each one of those ten days, which we felt like was very important with that young team. And from the first practice, we already discovered a very big change of intensity, a very big level of passion, and I think that was partly due to the incoming freshmen. They just are a group that loves to compete. They have great skill, and they don't like to lose. And if you look at the résumés of each one of them, that's partly what they bring for us. And so they're adding something to it right away along with the group that we return. So from that group going into the summer, that was one of the things that we noticed right away, just how we practice, and that's a value that Coach Yori brings to our team, is that what's important to her is that we be a great practicing team every single day, and that if we do that, she expects that we will show results. So when we went into the summer, we felt like after that summer of those 19 practices that we were able to have and then getting to play four games overseas, we just noticed that we stayed big-picture mostly when we did our practices, so we had mostly everything in, which again, with our situation, with Connie being out, it really paid off for us because the kids had already heard their voice, they had her voice in their head, so that paid off for us as her assistant coaches having to take over for a couple months here, and then that transition has been that much easier for all of us throughout that time. I think, too, in terms of just knowing what the expectation was, it really paid off having that system in. Did I answer your question? Jordan Hooper, thank you for reminding me. I think Jordan Hooper, what we're really excited about Jordan, she already is an offensive presence. I think most all of you probably know that, but what we're excited about in terms of what she's improved about her offense is her ability to put the ball on the floor. She has really improved that aspect of her game. And then she was already a really good rebounder, which I think she's continuing to improve on that, but she herself has stated she wants to be a better defensive player, and I think she's making a big commitment to that. Q. Regarding recruiting now with the change from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, does that change your recruiting base and your recruiting landscape? SUNNY SMALLWOOD: I think what it does is it adds to it. We're right in the middle, and so we have that ability to recruit from almost anyplace. We have a staff that has ties to almost everywhere in the country, which is a benefit, but now that we're in the Big Ten, we have that ability to venture into Big Ten country, and so I think it just expands to what we're capable of doing. I think that's going to be an advantage for us. And we're definitely trying to take advantage of it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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