Coach Jane Albright Addresses the Media
December 11, 2001 | Women's Basketball
Wisconsin women's basketball coach Jane Albright spoke with the media Monday at the Kohl Center. Albright discussed the schedule thus far, the victory over No. 10 NC State, upcoming games against UW-M and Drake and more. An edited transcript of the news conference follows.
On Marquette and UW-Milwaukee:
"When those two teams played, it was a two-point game just a couple of weeks ago so I think they are very similar teams. I really think you have to throw out everything when you play an interstate rival like that."
Thoughts on UW's offense:
"I certainly hope we can get off to a better start tomorrow night (vs. UW-Milwaukee). I took a look at both tapes and I think we got great looks with people we want shooting the ball. It's probably a little more natural (to be off) in the North Carolina State game because I think everybody is a little uptight and you're in a big game and you're pressing a little bit. But I thought our offenses worked well and fortunately, the good news about that is, it never seems to rattle us. Maybe it should rattle us. I know once we got to scoring in the first half we scored very quickly.
In Saturday's game, was it just bad shooting on NC State 's part or UW's defense'
"I think you can look at our interior defense. Emily Ashbaugh had five blocks. Their leading scorer is a post player and we really denied her a lot of touches. And I thought they turned the ball over a lot (24 turnovers), So I think that 's the direct result of defense. We certainly knew what they were best at and tried to take that away from them."
Thoughts on (senior center) Sarah Jirovec:
"I think that she's improved her conditioning. She 's able to catch and score. She really knows that she's going to get some minutes now and so she's ready to play when I call her number and she knows that really could be any time. The post camp she went to this summer, Pete Newell's post camp out in Calif., gave her some confidence and helped reinforce some things that we 've been telling her all along."
Are you more excited about your team than ever'
"Very much so. It's kind of like that Energizer bunny commercial; this team just keeps on going and going. They'll come out to practice today and practice like they're 0-0. They listen, they work hard. Stephanie Rich is in there shooting now. She's been there a half an hour already. They take a lot of individual responsibility and I think you can look and see there's a lot of great chemistry on the team. That makes it fun for the coaching staff."
When you looked at the schedule before the season started, what where your thoughts'
"I thought it was too tough. Last year, when we lost early, it did affect our confidence. When I looked at this schedule, even though I did the scheduling, I did think that I had overdone it a little bit. (Especially) when I looked at how many NCAA [tournament] teams there were."
Any surprises in the Big Ten so far'
"Not really. Michigan certainly has done extremely well. Penn State with the exception of probably one game, you can say they've done very well. It 's been a pretty good preseason for the Big Ten. Minnesota is not a surprise to me, they've done well other years before the conference started too, but they seem to have a new sense, a renewed sense of everything. I know that Ohio State is probably a little frustrated with the injury situation. If anyone could say there was a surprise it would be how successful [Purdue] has been. I'm not surprised at all because they have Purdue written on their jerseys. Outside of conference I would have felt someone would have been able to knock them off because they are a little more inexperienced this year, but they certainly have proven to be as good as everybody said they would be."
Has this non-conference schedule prepared you for the Big Ten season '
"I think so. I think we're getting better every game. We certainly still have some things to work on, but I think we also have some confidence. If we can finish out this week with that confidence I think that will give us some momentum going into that Purdue game. I don't think that we'll need to be motivated for that Purdue game, but I think confidence will be a big factor in it. I think our RPI is in the top 10 in the country. That gives you confidence. It's kind of like knowing you've studied for the big test and you've done well, but then you know you have another test the next day so you don't get to think about it too much."
