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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 31, 2013Bobbie KelseyCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Coach Kelsey enters her third season and returns 10 letter winners and 5 starters from last year's squad that finished 12‑19. Coach will start with an opening statement. BOBBIE KELSEY: Good morning. Very excited to be here today to officially kick off our media day here in Chicago. We have had some great practices already; we have not scrimmaged as of yet but we look a lot better than last year. So with that being said, I will take some questions. Q. Two questions, Taylor Wurtz I'm hearing is back, I wonder how she is doing now after missing last year with the injury and what she is going to bring to you; and the second question, am I correct Michala Johnson is going to be available to play and what will she add to your team? BOBBIE KELSEY: Both of those ladies are high‑caliber players, starting with Taylor, her being out last year was a bittersweet thing. We knew she would be back and was hopeful that her injury was not such that she could not play and she wanted to finish her career on a high note so to have her sit was hard because we need her. We lost 12 of our 19 losses was by single digits, which you feel like Taylor could have remedied a lot of that. But a lot of other kids got to play and now that she is back and healthy she looks really good and she doesn't have to do everything on her own. That's something she is going to have to learn, to let people help her. But when we need a basket we're going to Taylor. You mentioned Johnson, it's nice to have her in the post. We haven't had a true bonus post player since Kryuchkova came along our first year but she can do damage down on the block. You have to double her a little bit unless she is just missing shots, which she doesn't miss a whole bunch of 'em. So that nice inside/out punch along with Morgan Paige. Jacki, who has come along nice and Nicole Bauman, she is a sophomore. I could keep going on and on with we have a lot of young ladies who have improved their game and come along. We need to see them at game situations and practice is different than any game and we're excited for them and they're excited for each other and themselves. We're going to come out and see what we can do. Q. Coach, can you talk about your freshman class and who you see making an immediate impact? BOBBIE KELSEY: We have three freshman, Malayna Johnson, am I correct, Michala's younger sister, Michaela Crall and a young lady from Texas and she is a point guard, so she is‑‑ Carly Truesdale. Michala and Michaela Crall have injuries right now and Malayna just doesn't know what she is doing. Freshman don't always know what they're doing, but Malayna is a strong kid. Out of the three freshman she is going to make the biggest impact and we told her you got to be ready to play because Cassie Rochel has a back injury, we're not sure about now. She could play but she is on the mend so we're getting Malayna ready in case Cassie doesn't play. I'm not saying that but we're doing that so she is not in shock if she has to get out there and play. Same thing for Nicole Bauman who had to get out there and start. Malayna doesn't have that pressure because she doesn't have to carry the load as a guard does who has to call plays and things of that nature. Once she figures out she can get that ball down there and do some damage, rebound and run, she is going to be a tough cover and she is getting better every day. It's amazing how much she is gotten better in the 5 weeks we have been practicing so I'm excited for her as well. Q. Coach, with Stevens' graduation, I'm wondering what you think is going to be your answer at point guard this year? A freshman? BOBBIE KELSEY: No, Carly Truesdale is a true point guard. She has some injuries right now but shell come along. We are look to Dakota Whyte and she hits shots in practice I'm like, where did that come from, and last year Dakota wasn't quite ready but she is looking to take on the challenge of running the team and Tessa is going to back us up. So we have three kids that are ready to run the point, can and will but we really are depending on Dakota to run our team and she has done a great job so far in practice and it's given her confidence and she wants to lead. It's nice when a kid wants to lead, not that you're making them lead but they want to take up that challenge of leading the team. She has to figure out when to do it more when it's a little more adversity going on. Anybody can lead when it's all good, but when it's going south, she needs to be the one to pick the team up and get 'em organized and keep 'em calm. She is working on that. That doesn't come natural for her but she has done a great job so far. Q. Coach, your team really came on late, especially in the Big Ten tournament last year, made a lot of noise. Can you talk about how that helped you not only in the off season but early in this season coming back with most of those players and what do you feel like is your team's biggest strength right now? BOBBIE KELSEY: That game gave us a lot of confidence. Anybody that watched that game and we're playing a great Illinois team, very athletic, causing you to turn the ball over, and we had quite a few, I think we had 27, we led the league in turnovers, which we are working on that. To beat that type of team at that time really with about six players. If you notice we had about six players, six and a half! It really gave our team a lot of confidence that they could come out and really beat a great team like Illinois and do it when it was really important to try to make a statement at the end of your season. We knew we weren't going to go to postseason. However, that was a great game for us. Also, the win against Penn State at that time when they he beat us by 44 and then getting the opportunity to come back and beat those guys. We did have some signature wins, those two in particular. It allowed our kids to understand even when you have adversity you don't have a lot, if you play hard and believe in what you're doing and listen to the coaches, listen to and you say try to execute what we're telling you, you can have some success. Just having that win and ending on that note, obviously we lost to Purdue in the next game by 12 points but we were kinda out of gas at that time. Purdue is a great team as well. But to compete on that level with those type of teams. You don't want moral victories, but you got to hang your hat on something. We want the kids ton understand even if you don't win, if you play hard you have a chance and that's what we give ourselves every game, a chance to win. With the exception of those that we weren't in the game but those are few and are far between and I'm proud of our kids for percent versing. The thing I get the most pleasure out of is when you have fans come up or random strangers that have watched our team and said, "Man, you guys play so hard." Even if we don't win sometimes that gives us the confidence to let us know we're leading these kids in the right direction and they will never give up until the game is totally out of hand. You're not going to foul with 5 second left and be down by 10. That kind of thing, but they fight to the bitter end and sometimes we do come out on top in those games. Q. You mentioned, Coach, limited numbers last year and I know you've got some bump and bruises this season but it looks like you have more bodies. How will that allow to you change your style of play? BOBBIE KELSEY: That will allow us to play faster. I tell the guards to get the ball to the frontcourt as fast as you can and then if we don't have the advantage get us into something. So we're going to try to get the ball to the frontcourt faster so I don't think the 10‑second backcourt rule is going to have a lot of bearing on us, we're going to get it up there faster unless we're being pressed or something and when kids aren't doing what we need them to do, I can pull 'em on out. I couldn't do that last year, so I couldn't do a lot of threatening, because last year kids were like, who are you going to put in, the look on their faces, like, please, we're going to play. They really did try to do what we asked them to do but this year we have more scorers, more bodies, more opportunities to get everybody involved. I love a team where you can't key in on one person because now who you going to come off of? You gotta pick somebody. I tell our kids you have to be able to hit an open shot, you don't have to break it down off the dribble you have to hit an open shot because someone is going to help and we kick it out and every kid can do that, doesn't take athletic ability, you just step into your shot and take it. So we're looking forward to having the kids touch the ball and have an opportunity to score because we all know scoring is fun. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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