Albright Addresses Media At Monday News Conference
December 04, 2001 | Women's Basketball
Wisconsin women's basketball coach Jane Albright spoke with the media Monday about her team's success at the Arizona Tournament and this week's game at Marquette. The Badgers are 5-1 overall this season and will tip off against the Golden Eagles at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
A transcript of the conference follows and audio is available in the multimedia section.
On Kyle Black hitting a school record seven three-pointers:
'I felt that Kyle really took advantage of a zone defense that was really trying to pack it in on Jessie [Stomski] and guard Tamara [Moore] very tightly. I thought her teammates did a great job of giving her open looks and then she nailed them. Three pointers are always tough. She was in a rhythm the whole tournament. I believe she was five for six in our first game, so those are some phenomenal numbers. As a coach, you just like to see that because she has put countless hours in the gym working on her shot. The other night after we played Cleveland State she went in and shot. She just keeps working, trying to get it (perfect). She played a good overall game, had some nice passes and I'm just really pleased with her.'
On an improved defense and rebounding effort:
'I think those are two of the key things we really have worked on. We scored at lot of points--50-some points in a half for our second-straight game. When you have a team shooting like that it means that one person gives up a good shot to give another player a great shot. We really passed the ball well and got some easy baskets from our defense. We didn't have a lot of steals yesterday, but in the first game we did. Rebounding is something that we're trying to turn from a weakness into a strength and really have emphasized that probably in every practice. '
On Jessie Stomski:
'A lot of teams seem to be playing us in zone. I think Jessie probably took a couple of games to get used to it because she doesn't get as many touches. But you can see from last week's performance with three double-doubles in a row that she's really very active against a zone. She 's really worked on her game and she has more moves than any post player I 've ever coached. She has a great variety of moves. When she wasn't shooting well, she had gotten away from Jessie Stomski on the block, make a move and score. I think she's back, and now that she has her confidence back, she'll be able to do some short corner shots and some 15-footers. She's taken a few threes and she's going to hit one of those sooner or later.'
On how her team is against zone or man-to-man defenses:
'I think we have confidence against both. Last year, I think we were a little nervous about teams playing us in zone. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do better against a zone. We really have simplified our zone offense. In the past, we've had a lot of different zone offenses and we basically have two now. We've just really worked more on the principles of how to get somebody open and how to read the holes. I think they've responded to the simplicity of it. I think if you have good shooters any zone offense works.'
On playing Marquette:
'I think that it's something that we should do. They beat us the last two times, and I don't like losing. I think that Terri Mitchell does an outstanding job in that program. I think that we need to play two of the three (div. I) schools (in the state) each year and we're committed to doing that. The last two times we've played them, they were one-up on us with experience. They 've always been really talented and we've been talented, but this year the one thing that is in our favor is we have more experience. Hopefully, that will help us turn the tides on the rivalry.'
On the tempo of the team's play:
'Our defense really dictates our tempo. I think that a couple of the other teams have tried to slow us down. We've had games where we haven't shot the ball as well, but we've still been able to increase the tempo within the course of the 40-minute game. I thought that Holy Cross slowed our tempo in the first few minutes. We seemed a little puzzled at the things they were doing, but then we were able to increase the tempo.'
On the starting rotation and player versatility:
'We've got four players in our starting rotation that are really solid players, five if you count Ebba (Gebisa). I think Emily and Jessie are our starting posts. Ebba doesn't start but she's of that caliber. She 's really different from Jessie and Emily. We have a lot of different things we look for in that fifth spot. We've got Leah as one type of player, and Kristi, Candice, Stephanie, and Shawna. We've really got a long list of people and, to win a game, I can look in that bag of tricks and say we need a ball handler, we need an outside shooter, we need a rebounder, we need someone to settle us down. To win the game yesterday, the rebounding was important. In the second half we started Leah Hefte because of that tight zone. Leah is a great shooter. She's going to have a game soon where she busts out and hits a lot of threes. Tamara Moore is playing phenomenal basketball. She had nine assists. She's definitely playing her best basketball and yesterday it was at the one. Now, Wednesday it may be at the two or the three. I'm really pleased with the versatility of our whole group.'
