Stone Addresses Media Monday
November 24, 2003 | Women's Basketball
Wisconsin women's basketball head coach Lisa Stone addressed the media Monday at the UW weekly news conference. Stone discussed the team's season-opening loss to Northern Illinois and the Badgers' upcoming, action-packed schedule, including a trip this weekend to Miami for a two-day tournament.
A full transcript is below. Video is also available by clicking on the "multimedia" link located in the red menu bar above.
Opening statement: 'Well, it's tough to sit here today after a loss, but we'll take a lot of positives from the game and learn. I myself, the day after a game, am better after we practice. In 20 minutes we'll go to practice and we'll address some things. In fact, today, it 's not the day after the game, it's defense day. We're going to address our defensive miscues of last night, watch film together, regroup, put the game behind us and move on to our trip to Miami. We played a great team last night ' yesterday afternoon, in Northern Illinois. They are a pretty senior dominated team and they came into a tough environment with a great crowd and handle themselves very well. What we want to do is, obviously, learn to throw the game over the top. I thought we were courageous in our efforts in coming back, down 12 (points) with an opportunity to win the game. I'm proud of our kids for that. Their effort was there, we just have to take our margin of error and shorten that a bit. Hopefully, go down to Miami and some nice warm weather and come back with a couple of wins.'
Lisa, after you had a chance to look at it ' I know we talked about shooting yesterday, but were there other areas that ' you talked about defense, was that the big key' 'I think when Monique Davis (Northern Illinois guard) makes a comment that she could get to the rim any time she wanted, it's pretty much an insult to your defense. I don't want to be overly critical. I think we do some nice things, but we've got to close the deal. We got the shot clock worked down until ' six or seven times, under two seconds and they bailed themselves out, or we bailed them out and gave them a shot and many times it was a three-point shot. So, those are some things that we will address. We're playing a very athletic team in Hampton. I've already ' I've studied last night's game and started to move on a little bit to our next opponent and we're going to have to run a lot of different multiple defenses to make a statement that way. So, it wasn't so much that we shot poorly, or that they shot well, it's the fact that our defense has to lock down a little bit tighter. '
Lisa, was there anybody on the team that you thought provided a spark on defense' And what do you want to see most improved on defense in practice' 'What I want to see more in practice is more alertness, more attentiveness, instinct, defensive instinct. This is a process. I credit our fans for their patience and their understanding of the fact that we're trying to get some things done. I thought there are a lot of great things to take from yesterday 's game, but defensively we need to be more alert, more aware, in better position and likewise to finish with a box on the rebound. I thought Kjersten Bakke gave us great energy yesterday, tremendous energy in many, many ways. She got some big old boards for us, provided great defensive pressure, etcetera and I'm proud of her. She will instill that in the rest of the team and we've talked about that in the past. Again, we have to be more aware on defense.'
You mentioned Kjersten (Bakke), she was your only player off the bench to score. Were you disappointed with the scoring production of your bench players ' 'It's not just the bench players, I thought offensively we sputtered a bit. We need to understand that you play defense to stop teams, not to get on offense. That's a mentality that we're going to change. We 'll address that today. You play defense to get stops, you don't play defense to get on offense. We're all human. You knock a shot down and you 're the best defensive player on the other end. Our emotions have to be a little more balanced, our thought processes have to be a little more alert. If we're doing a good job on the defensive end, our offense will come together.'
With yesterday being your first game and a homecoming of sorts, was it was you expected going into it emotionally and everything else ' 'It was wonderful. The crowd ' you know the Packers played at the same time, a little conflict. The weather was icky outside and the fans came out in droves and really supported us. Even as I walked off the court after the game, a great rousing support. It's certainly ' your fans have your back and they are with you through thick and thin. It anything it was just a positive reminder about the great Wisconsin fan.'
Lisa, the team has a stretch of how many games in a row in the next week and a half. Are you concerned about the stress and the exhaustion factor with 'what are you impressions of that' 'The quicker we can get back out on the court, the better, in my mind. You've got to just get right back out there and we have today and tomorrow, then we take the trip. We play Friday, Saturday, Monday, Thursday, it's like five games in 11 days. It's a tight schedule, but that's the non-conference. You need to endure, you need to get better, you need to be in game-like situations and what better way than to play on the road. The schedule was set before I had arrived here, but we certainly are ' we 're not going to worry about that. That's something that we're going to thrive on and build on and get right back out there and have a better performance that we did yesterday.'
Just one more question about Ashley Josephson. A lot has been talked about with Emily (Ashbaugh) and Lello (Gebisa) and Stephanie (Rich) being key factors on offense, but she (Josephson) really had an incredible game. Can you just talk about her a bit' 'She gave us a lift, offensively. She made back-to-back threes when we were down 12 and it cut into their lead quite a bit and we had opportunities to get it to a tie score. Ashley gave us a nice offensive spark. The whole thing with our team, including Ashley, is that our offense can't spark our defense. It has to be the other way around. It was good to see Ashley get some confidence out there, just pull the trigger when she was open. The tentativeness on our team has to go away, we have to play with a little more killer instinct and put teams away. It's an attitude. It's something that we teach and I'm hoping to teach this team how to win.'
How well do you take a loss, were you able to sleep last night' How was it for you' 'I don't ever want to get used to it. I don't take losses real well. I wear my emotions on my coat sleeve, there's no question about that. It was tough. Last night was a tough night. Probably the best thing was an Oregon welcoming, homecoming-type thing for Donna (Freitag) and I, with all these Oregon fans. To have people come up and say, `We love you, it doesn't matter what the score is,' that kind of stuff, that was probably what I needed. But to go to sleep, to look at the ceiling and say, `Ok, we lost (Lindsay) Secrest, she knocks down four threes in the second half,' and it starts spinning. I will be better as soon as we get through practice today. Now, the game is behind us and we'll move on to the next.'
