|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 31, 2013Kevin McGuffCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Joining us is Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff. He enters his first season with the Buckeyes, having spent the last two years at Washington and the previous nine at Xavier. He has led his teams to a 255‑99 overall record, Ohio State returns 8 letter winners and three starters from last year's squad. Coach? KEVIN McGUFF: Good morning everyone. I'm excited for Ohio State University. As an Ohio native, it's an opportunity for myself and my family to get back to the state and I'm excited to build something special. Q. Coach, how has the adjustment period been for you and your family? KEVIN McGUFF: It was a difficult adjustment. I took the job one week after my wife and I welcomed our sixth child into the world. So I left Seattle and left my wife and six children there. It was hard. But we also knew this was a really unique opportunity for us to come back closer to our family and be at a special place in Ohio State so we wanted to jump at this opportunity. Now the kids are here and my oldest three are in school and settled and they're in a great situation. Columbus is a fantastic community and everyone has been welcoming to us the at Ohio State and everything has gone great and the now just focused on the team and the upcoming season. Q. Coach, having time to work with your players and being able to come in and make an assessment of what's there, can you give us a snapshot of what you see in the returning players? KEVIN McGUFF: Well, it is a great advantage to be able to work with players in the summer and this being the first summer to do that, for a new coach to get more with your team. What I would say is when you look at who we were last year, we were a team in the scoring column that was really dominated by Tayler Hill and she has since graduated so we have to transition to something very different. What I see so far and what we need to become and evolve into is a team with balance. So instead of somebody with 30 points and everybody else in single digits, we're going to have to be a much more balanced scoring team, Moore and Adams and Scullion are going to have to share the load. I do think we have some balance in four senior post players. Martina and Ashley can give us points around the balance. Ferguson is a perimeter player, Maleeka and Cait have been great this fall, so I think we have to be more balanced than what they were last season. Q. You mentioned Darryce, Ashley, and Ameryst. KEVIN McGUFF: One of the things that we have had, we have been kinda banged up, even Darryce tweaked her knee last week and didn't practice for three straight days, but that's evolving. Of those that you mentioned, they will see significant minutes and I think at some point they will probably have a chance to be starters. Q. Coach, you mentioned trying to achieve more balance. Can you talk specifically about the style of play we will see on the court from you to reach that goal? KEVIN McGUFF: Yeah, and one of the things that I think is important that obviously we talked about, you assess who you have in your program and on your team and try to put them in a position where we can be as successful as we can. You also, with a new program you want to start to chart a course for your program to have an identity and a way of doing things and a style of play that you need to have in the future so you have to marry the two, so to speak. In the future we will have a team that hopefully will be one of the fastest, most aggressive teams in all of college basketball. We have recruited toward that and we will continue to do that. We don't necessarily have a roster full of people that can play that style now so maybe a little faster than what they've done, but also it will be at a pace that this particular group can be successful in. Q. There is no true freshmen class, no one was recruited last year. How much more difficult has that made you getting off the ground quickly here? KEVIN McGUFF: Well, it kinda is what it is. We don't have any freshmen so it's a big picture thing in that it has made is more‑‑ we have had to spend a lot of time recruiting because with the three scholarships that they had last year that weren't used and the four seniors that now we have available scholarships, so going back to the spring, summer and fall, we have had to‑‑ and by the way we have four juniors, so we have 11 scholarships in two years so that has put a tremendous amount of pressure to get off the ground quick until recruiting probably more than what it will mean overall is we have had to spend so much time utilizing the scholarships to get the program where we want it. Q. Coach, you mentioned the impact that Tailer Hill has on this program. Oftentimes she took the game over and was the floor leader. Who do you see taking on that role of leading this team in the point guard position? KEVIN McGUFF: I think Ameryst will get a lot of minutes at the point and she has great presence on the court. She is still kind of evolving as a leader that can vocalize some of the things she wants to share with her teammates. But I like her effort, her energy and intensity, it's contagious and I believe we will get leadership from our seniors in general. It's hard to go from someone like Tayler and Amber Stokes who didn't put up the same amount of points but was one of the best defenders in the league and a great kid who had a great presence so between the two of them they provided great leadership. So that's something we're going to have to grow into and our seniors are going to have to make sure they provide great leadership for the other people in the program. Q. Ashley Adams is one of the most polite people I've ever met in my life. How hard is it to get her to be vocal on the court? KEVIN McGUFF: Hard. Q. What do you do? KEVIN McGUFF: Ashley‑‑ you're not going to come in in one year and change somebody's personality. Ashley is a good kid, has talent, I have enjoyed getting to know her and coach her. I don't want to say here not going to address that but all I can tell you ‑‑ and I don't have any reference point so she is quiet to me but some around her say she what is been talking more than she ever has. So maybe we are making progress, it's hard for me to measure. She is a bright kid and always seems to be in the right place at the same time. She helps our team and provides that leadership for people when they're out there. She is doing the right things she has a great presence that way. Q. Coach, with Maryland and Connecticut and West Virginia and Georgia, as you're trying to make this transition and getting to know your team and putting all the pieces together, how do you approach those games that present a big challenge? KEVIN McGUFF:  Well, you know, you take over a job you inherit everything, like it or not. The thing is, it is challenging and difficult. I think for our team anyway with a new staff and a new way of doing things. We have to stay focused on the process. We may be doing things really, really well. It's not going to show up in the "win" column every night with a schedule like that, we have to realize that. But we have to get better every day with the system because it's so new and we're going to be challenge from a mental standpoint, mental toughness standpoint to fight through some of those tough nights. But we're going to learn a lot about our team and I'm hopeful that what we learn through the schedule is going to prepare us for the big games. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|