Albright Addresses Media at Monday News Conference
December 31, 2001 | Women's Basketball
Wisconsin women's basketball coach Jane Albright spoke with the media Monday at the Kohl Center. Albright discussed the team's Big Ten start, its upcoming home games against Indiana and Michigan and the Badger leadership. An edited transcript of the news conference follows.
Opening statement: 'As a team, we're very excited to be where we are. We haven't been able to put together two games as fine as the last two in quite a while to start off with. I think we played several games last year within the course of the year that were that good. All that's over with and now we 've got two more challenges. Indiana has four seniors in its starting lineup and I think seniors are always people to reckon with. You look at our seniors and you know that they have the same goals down there. I think we're going to have our hands full on Thursday. We are at home and we're starting to feel like we're pretty good at home and that we have a home court advantage and I think that we'll definitely still have some momentum. Michigan, the team that was picked to win the league is 0-2; that's Big Ten basketball. So they're going to come in here pretty grumpy. We're glad to be at home for two games and I think it's a realistic goal for us to hope to start 4-0.'
Where is the team's ability to handle pressure coming from ' 'Experience. I want to point my finger at [strength and conditioning coach] Scott Hettenbach and the conditioning he's put them through. He came today and you should have seen their faces. It was really a hard workout he put them through, but they get through that and they're able to practice. They've got a lot of confidence in each other.'
Comments on other players stepping up: 'That's when you know you have a team. Some of the other teams in the Big Ten, they have a key player, and if that key player goes off [the court] they can beat anybody in the country. And we 're starting to think we've got more than one or two or three and then you look at yesterday [against Iowa] you've got a fourth one, because Emily Ashbaugh ends up with 17 points and 10 rebounds. That's the definition of a team, not just a group of kids with one great player.'
How many primary scorers is it good to have' '100 percent sure, I can tell you it's three. The best coaching year I ever had, record-wise, was at Northern Illinois with three primary scorers and then two people that could fill in any night. With four or five, it's a little too many because nobody is exactly sure who is supposed to have the good night. Basically within our three primary scorers, we've got an outside threat [Kyle Black], a penetrating athlete [Tamara Moore] and a person that's dominate on the block [Jessie Stomski] and then we can just mix the other people in around them an they're great role players, but a role player doesn't mean you're not the reason we win the game. Leslie Jauch showed you that yesterday, she came in and got a steal, two free throws, gave us some momentum, gave Jessie a chance to regroup and go back in.'
What have been your primary reasons for success this year' 'I think basically, it's just the players have been working extremely hard and they have for a very long time. Anytime you put that much stock into anything, anything that you put that much time into, you expect results and when you come up against other teams you think that you're prepared. It starts with the seniors 'but to have great leaders you have to have great followers. And we've got people that want to follow them. We've got people who want to lead and people who want to follow and that's when you have great chemistry.'
