Coach Stone Talks with the Media Monday
December 10, 2007 | Women's Basketball
LISA STONE: Well, we're excited about our opportunity here. We play two great teams this week, but certainly starting with Green Bay under new coach Matt Bollant is a great guy. He was under the tutelage of Kathy Bennett while at Evansville and at Indiana. I 've known Matt quite a long time, and he's carrying on the torch as to the hard work that Green Bay does both offensively and defensively. They've got some very, very nice players. It's a short turnaround for us, but actually, in my opinion, it's good for us to get right back out on the court tomorrow and play and keep the momentum going.
QUESTION #1: What differences have you noticed with Matt versus Kevin coaching, or, I mean, have you noticed' Have you gotten a chance to look at much'
STONE: You know, Matt is a smart enough guy to know what Kevin had going is what you stay with, and he does. They're very, very blue collar. They're very fundamental. They like an up tempo. Kati Harty is a great point guard, very quick. It 'll be a nice matchup with her and Rae. She'll push the tempo. She runs the show. She's the engine of that team.
Kayla Groh is their shooter, coming off 19 points in their last outing. They beat K State, I believe, was their last victory at home, and they, you know, they played a decent schedule thus far, looking forward to this game. Porath and Templin are their other guards that all can shoot threes.
And when you look at what they can do offensively and defensively, it's very similar to last year. They'll spread you out, drive, draw and dish, that 's their offense, try to crash the boards hard, and then disrupt you offensively. They're going to play hard. That's the bottom line. And we have got to bring our lunch pail, go to work, and outwork this team, because they're well coached and they're carrying on that same tradition that Kevin instilled while he was there.
QUESTION #2: With the short turnaround, do you try to do much as far as scouting or do you just kind of do a normal, you know, shoot around today or . . .
STONE: Actually, the scouting report itself was handed to the players last night, so the written part, it's a lot of mental preparation. You know, we can't have a three-hour running practice today because we have a game tomorrow. Yet with the short turnaround, and again, due to the, we would have had two days to prepare, and my coaching staff, Tasha McDowell, has this scout and has been diligent with it.
And the fact is that we're very familiar with their players, their style of play, that for us it's to touch on some things, get mentally prepared, see things on film, go through the scouting report today, do a walk-through in terms of what they do offensively and defensively, get some shots in, and stretch and get ready for tomorrow.
QUESTION #3: Alyssa has, she turned a lot of heads in exhibition play, and then maybe found things a little harder. Are you getting a sense that she's starting to kind of find herself again in the last couple games '
STONE: Yeah, we kind of coined the phrase that coach Bielema did with his football team late in the year, after the Illinois game, just with the bands that says just play, I 've been saying that to Alyssa since she's arrived here. She's a great player, and sometimes less is more with her, just turn her loose and let her play. I thought last night was a good game for her.
I thought last week she actually had a pretty good turning point week, confidence defensively in guarding the ball, and then offensively, she's great in the open court, makes great decisions. She's given us seven to nine points a game. That 's pretty decent. That at any time could turn into double digits. I think just every single day she gets better, more comfortable.
I think the early confidence was good for her, a realization of what she's up against with some teams that we've played, Virginia, Ole Miss, some of the athletics teams that got out there and double teamed her, to the progression to right now, where I think she feels that she can get inside the lane, create shots, hit an open three, handle the ball in transition, and guard. And I think that we've, I just, I like her daily growth, and as she continues to improve, so do we.
QUESTION #4: You talk about things that you'd like your team to do better, but what is maybe the one thing from the start of the season until now that your team has improved upon the most or made the biggest strides from then until now'
STONE: I think right now we're starting to move the ball a little bit better, and as we move the ball and we cut harder, our turnovers go down. And it's interesting how simple that is, but, and I also like the emergence of our scoring. We're getting scoring from other places. That's improved.
Defensively and taking care of the basketball overall, those two areas, you know, I 'm kind of redundant there because I said our turnovers, the numbers stayed the same, but I like the fact that we're starting to make, if the turnover is happening, it's happening in efforts of trying to do the right thing. So that 's good. But in terms of something to work on, our defense has to step up. We need to be better on-the-ball defenders. We've got to get to the weak side. We were rebounding at a very high pace early on. That's kind of leveled off. That 's got to tune up as well.
But probably the biggest improvement too is that we're finding scoring from other places. And I've said to our team and I've said to the media as well, our depth has to be one of our strengths this year, has to be. We need to be able to go to our bench and get some scoring. We need to get scoring from other people. We need contributions from a very talented group of people.
We've got some people on our bench that started last year. We've got three freshmen right now taking minutes from returning players from last year. That 's all good, healthy competition, but we need contributions in, you know, a quality form. It doesn't have to be quantity. I want quality contribution, and I 'm starting to see that, so that's encouraging.
