Marquette University Athletics
Terri Mitchell's Coaching Diary
1/25/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 25, 2000
Throughout the course of the season, Marquette Women's Basketball Coach Terri Mitchell will share her thoughts on the Golden Eagles.
Question: "You have a couple of games coming up. It is the state of the union."
Terri Mitchell: "We are 6-1 in the conference and suffered our first loss to Memphis (on Sunday). We have been preaching to our players all year long that this is an extemely hard conference and traveling on the road is extremely hard. You gotta be ready and we are entering a stretch where we go two games, South Florida and Houston. We have got to get our confidence back. I told our players that we can't struggle through these games. I am not talking about point total like we want a 20-point win because these are two great teams that are coming in to play us. South Florida just lost to Tulane by six or eight points and Tulane is one of the best teams in the country.
What I am saying is that we have to get back in track offensively and defensively, so we feel good about what we are doing. If we happen to win that is good for us and if it is a one-point victory then I am the happiest coach. I never look at point totals in victories.
I just look at us growing from the game yesterday. We were all very dissapointed. We did things that didn't follow the game plan and that was the difference in the game. You talk about five minutes on an opponent's court, if you don't follow the game plan then it is right there. It was a one point game with six and a half minutes to go and ended up being 12.
So, we add these two home games and then we hit a very tough stretch when we go into Southern Miss., Tulane, Cincinnati and Louisville. We have to be ready because I think that the next three weeks will say a lot in whose is going to get that bye in the conference. The four teams want that bye for the conference championship and who will be in position to win the regular season.
It is tough to win on the road. People come here and lose and now it is our turn to go around and go there. So, I have asked our players to go for broke, to work like they have nver worked before, to put in the extra time which they haven't done before because we have worked way too hard to pack it in now and for it ot be just another season where we end up being tied or don't end up getting our goals. I think they understand but it is yet to be seen about what they do."
Question: "Do you talk to your team about the fine line between winning and losing?"
Terri Mitchell: "All the time. I talked to them about that at the airport. I think that some of them had a hard time with my anger after the game and I told them that it is not about them, I love them and will always love them. I care very deeply about each of one them but it's the difference between winning and losing a championship comes down to games like those. You have to overcome a hostile crowd, you have to overcome situations out of your control and you have to keep following the game plan.
This conference is so widespread and travel is tough and the competition, I mean our conference is good. The top is good and the bottom is just as good. Everyone has beaten everyone else. Ther are no easy games. There are no gimmees. It is a certain mentality.
Our players are all very concerned about their studies as we start the second semester and I am all for that. They are student athletes. Their life has to boil down to two things, being a student and being an athlete period. If you work this hard and we have been working very hard since August when we went to Sweden and Denmark and started practicing.
It has been a very long season for us. When we have worked this hard, why give up now and why not put in the effort now because we have five weeks left in the season and those five weeks are going to go by in a heartbeat. I want us to accomplish our goals."
Question: "Overall is the team where you want it to be?"
Terri Mitchell: "We are 14-4 so I am very happy. I never try to put a win in seasons or losses. I think our defense is where it should be and I would probably want to trap more. I thnk we have been in foul trouble and some of our younger players coming off the bench don't understand the aggressiveness that we want in our defense. So maybe in that respect, I am a little bit dissapointed but we are holding down people to 30 percent (shooting) and that is great.
Our offense is the thing that I am suprised at. We certaintly haven't peaked by any means at all. You have Abbie Willenborg, Lisa Oldenburg, Kristi Johnson, Heidi Bowman and Kiesha Oliver all have had big games but we haven't had three or four of them playing their game together side-by-side where people have to prepare for both the outside and the inside. So,it can happen over the next five weeks. We are going to try to build up that confidence up that everybody has to be a scorer."
