Marquette University Athletics
Terri Mitchell Meets The Press
10/12/1999 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Oct. 12, 1999
On Conference USA in 1999-2000?
I think that the league will be better than last year. Last year four or five teams went to the NCAA Tournament and four or five teams have another strong chance at going this season. There will be no easy game in the conference. Last season, teams on the bottom defeated teams at the top so you can't go into any game and say it's a win. And that just makes you even more prepared for the NCAA Tournament.
What did your players work on during the summer?
We give them suggestions on what we want them to do and what we address is strength. We had to come back even better prepared so we felt that we had to be a stronger team. Most of our players stayed here but we did have three players who did not stay, they went home, but they're three players who had proven that they could go home and still come back in great shape. We did travel to Europe during the summer and had the opportunity to practice with them for 10 days in August. We had five games overseas and went undefeated. All of that for us were building blocks to get ready for the season.
How much of a contribution do you expect from the newcomers this year.
You never know. I expect Rashida Gales to get a lot of time on the perimeter because I want to press more and attack more. One of the things we always talk about is going as deep as we can on the bench so more people get experience. Rachel Klug has proved in the preseason that she is a strong player who can rebound and who has shown that she can challenge Abbie (Willenborg). Right now, Rachel doesn't have the offensive skills that Abbie has, but physically she is challenging her in the post area -- knocking her around. If we can sub Rachel in and let her knock some people around, we'll be in good shape when we give Abbie a blow
With the expectations facing your team, do the players have a great amount of pressure on them going into the season.
Not at all. You are talking about a team with veterans, with senior leader from Abbie Willenborg, Lisa Oldenburg and Kiesha Oliver. They look at this as a great opportunity, they want to go out with this being the best year ever. Because they are making that push, everybody else is following their lead. Then you have people like Heidi Bowman and Kristi Johnson with all their experience and they are in that mix. They also want to build upon it because they know they have some time here after the seniors leave. It's not pressure, it's great competition and why they came to Marquette -- to play the best competition they can and not have a schedule where you have a bunch of "W's" that don't mean anything. Everything we do is to prepare for the NCAA Tournament and that's what that schedule does.
On competing on the national level
I think that I've learned a lot over the last three years on what it takes to compete on the national level. I know for sure that you need experience to go far in the NCAA Tournament. We have experience. You also need depth and that is something that we are addressing. Hopefully, knock on wood, we'll have no injuries. I think that's the big unspoken factor that none of us knows. If we stay injury free, then on paper we're looking pretty good to be able to do some things in the tournament and maybe go further than what we've done in the past. But a lot of things have to happen -- Kristin Seffern is unproven but I think she is an outstanding player. She had a great preseason for us last year before getting hurt and she's going to be a key for us inside because she's a scorer. Sarah Zawodny has taken care of business during the summer to be stronger and bigger in the post. We'll be leaning on Rashida Gales for her quickness and athletic ability on the perimeter. Ebony Williams is now on the wing and she is player who played inside the last two years, and we put her on the perimeter because we feel that she can be our best defender and then we'll look for her to score out there. If those things fall into place, then I think that we could have a very good year.
How did much did the Europe trip help?
It helped tremendously. On so many levels, we think unity is our strength. The trip solidified our unity that much more. It's a pure joy as a coach to go overseas and not to worry about your players. We don't have the kind of team that is going to get into trouble or do anything inappropriate. So we can have fun together and at the same time, my message to them was, "we're not going to practice, but when we step out on the court we're all business and about winning." That really came across to our players, when they stepped out on the court, they were nothing but business. They didn't care that we were in Denmark or in Sweden, this was a team we are competing against and we're going to do whatever it takes. And they did that and had some good results.
What about the style of play. Can you reinvent the wheel with everybody coming back?
The principles of the program remain the same. Defense is always going to be the heart and soul of our program. How we play that defense may look a little different. I think that is something that we're playing with right now because this team is hungry, it's ready to go and we don't want to bore them. We want to press more and we want to so some things in half court that we haven't done as much just to keep the players on edge so that they say to themselves, "okay, let's get after it." Offensively, our goal is to run more. We're obviously going to pound the ball inside, we have one of the best post players in the country, but at the same time we want to get out and run and open up the court.
