Marquette University Athletics
Terri Mitchell's Coaching Diary
12/17/1999 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Throughout the course of the season, Marquette Women's Basketball Coach Terri Mitchell will share her thoughts on the Golden Eagles.
Dec. 17, 1999
We are nine games into the season and I'm very pleased where this team is at. We purposely scheduled the hardest non-conference schedule in the history of the program and, at 7-2, I'm pleased with the effort and the focus that our players have had. We still need a lot of work and there are some things that we need to get in both offensively and defensively as far rhythm. Most of the struggles that we've had have come on the offensive end. I think that our defense has been solid from the beginning and it will continue to grow. We will be able to do more trapping things and build upon the foundation we have laid.
On the offensive side, we are still trying to find that rhythm and still trying to find that inside-out game whereas, in most of our games, we have relied on our inside players. When you have two outstanding post players in Lisa Oldenburg and Abbie Willenborg, that's not surprising, but at the same time I know that our guards are very capable of scoring. They are going through a struggle with their confidence right now and while I realize that sometimes as a coach you get caught up in the day-by-day preparation for the next opponent, I need to pay more attention to talking with each individual player and building them up.
We host Arkansas State on Saturday night (Dec. 18) and a lot of people don't know how great this team is because they are from the south and may not have the name recognition of other programs. But this is a great team, they have outstanding scorers and a high RPI and that's exactly why we are playing them. They are undefeated and this will be no easy task for us, but it is the kind of game we need to prepare for conference. It will also show the maturity of our players coming off a tough week of finals. Marquette is a great academic institution and it takes a lot of effort to get through finals. Our players care very much about their grades but, at the same time, you can't put aside basketball.
We have worked very hard this week and prepared them so we expect good things on Saturday. More than anything, we want to win, but we want a building block so that we can keep building upon the foundation. Because when we get back from Christmas, we are tested right off the bat with our first conference game at home against DePaul who is playing great right now. Then we take on our last non-conference opponent in Notre Dame, a top 10 team, at their place. Our plate is full, but it is full because we have a team with three leaders in Kiesha (Oliver), Lisa and Abbie. We did this on purpose and I think that our players understand that we have a tough road but this road is to prepare us for what we all want and that is a conference championship.
After Saturday's game, we are going to do a Special Olympics clinic on the 19th -- that's something our team has done every year and it's special to us. To be able to interact with those athletes is part of one of the principles of our program which is thankfulness and wanting to give something back to the community. So, we'll do that and then get some lifting and conditioning in and then use Monday (Dec. 20) for clean up -- basic stuff. It's not like you can talk too much about your next opponent when it is 10 days away. We'll get back together on the 26th at noon and have a couple of practices that day.
