Transcript of Coach Stone's New Conference
November 13, 2003 | Women's Basketball
The following is the transcript of the news conference, Wednesday afternoon on Head Coach Lisa Stone's first recruiting class.
'We are very excited, my staff and I are very pleased with our first recruiting class. We will sign five players in the early signing period, Lesha Jones, Danielle Ward, Jolene Anderson, Akiya Alexander and Shari' Welton. We feel very, very good about this class. They are very athletic. They are great people, come from great families. They fit in tremendously with their current team. Our basketball team, the Wisconsin Badger women's basketball team sold these players on this institution and all it has to offer. When you make the decision on where to go to school it must be the right fit, from an academic standpoint, from an athletic standpoint. Then it's getting to know the players, the coaches and these five young women fit in tremendously with our team. And our players get a ton of the credit for selling our university. They are not only great basketball players, and as I talk about each of them and address the fact that they meet our needs from an athletic standpoint, from a position standpoint. Their families have become part of our Badger family as well. We have got to know them and built a great relationship from a staff standpoint to our player and their families and they are as excited as we are about being Badgers. Again, I commend my staff for their hard work. We came on board and got after it right away. Donna, Steph, Denise and I did a lot of recruiting this summer and we were very pleased with this class.
'Lesha Jones will come in at 6'3'; she 's up for Michigan Player of the Year. Lesha's a strong left-handed post player. She will play the five-position for us. She can run, she can shoot, she can catch. She's a tremendous athlete and can dominate a lot of games. (She has) great size, great athletic ability. Statistically, you have that in front of you, but Lesha is the real deal and a left-handed post player in something that is a real special quality to have.
'Danielle Ward is another leftie and ironically, my first left-handed player is Kjersten Bakke, in my 19 years in coaching, so now I'll have three lefties. Danielle Ward is a lean, athletic, lanky body that has tremendous upside. Both Lesha and Danielle will offer athleticism, height, ability to score, ability to defend. Danielle comes from a great background. Lina Cunningham has done a great job coaching her and she is developed into a very fine player, one of the top post players in the state of Wisconsin. We're real excited about Danielle. She'll probably play the four-position for us, but has capabilities of stepping out facing the basket with range as far as three point. Jolene Anderson is a scorer.
'Jolene Anderson is on track to break Anna DeForge 's record, who ironically played against us last night. Jolene is a tremendous basketball player. She is, in my mind, the top guard in the state of Wisconsin. We said all along to keep Wisconsin's best here and I think we've done a good job with that. Jolene can score from a lot of different positions. She will play the two-position for us. She's played one, two, three, four and five in her AAU team and has the abilities to score. I'm real excited about Jolene and her abilities to give us some points from the perimeter.
'Akiya Alexander is a combo guard. Akiya can play one and two. Again, (she has a) long, lean, athletic, lanky body at the guard position. Akiya 's a great defender, can get to the rim, can get inside defenses and score and she has matured into a very, very nice player as well. Akiya's family, she comes from a great heritage, her uncle played at Purdue, her mother was a track athlete at Southern Illinois and comes from a great long line of athletic background. And we're real excited about Akiya; she can do a lot of things for us and be a real versatile player out there on the perimeter.
'Shari' Welton comes to us from Thornwood, another great high school athlete and an athlete that has worked very, very hard, working with a personal trainer on a daily basis. She is probably leaps and bounds ahead of everybody from a standpoint of strength and conditioning. She meets with that trainer everyday. She 's strong, she's physical, she'll play the three-guard for us and is versatile, play the four if we need her to. I think we'll use Shari ' more as an off guard, a small forward, if you will. And her abilities, obviously, she can score, but she's big on the glass and we'll add another athlete to our lineup.
'These five players, you look at'you talk about a fab five and there might be certain cliches and quotas that go with out class, but have basically a player in each position. That's going to combine with a current women 's basketball team that is committed to taking this program to the next level. We 've addressed their needs from an athletic standpoint, from a position standpoint. We're excited about these kids. They fit in great with our staff, but more importantly, with our players. Four of these players, Lesha Jones, Danielle Ward, Akiya Alexander and Shari' Welton all played for the Chicago Hoops Express. They played on the same AAU team so they know each other, they are familiar with each other and they are close knit as it is already. Jolene will fit in tremendously with them, as well. I can 't say enough about them, I'm really excited about them and they are going to help hopefully, take this program to where we want to go.'
Lisa, can anyone step in right away and earn considerable minutes' 'I think every single player that walks in the first day of practice has the ability to step in and play right away. These five players are athletes and they'll come in as freshmen with equal opportunity to step in and play as anybody. And I feel very confident that each of these five have a leg up and have some ability to play right away.'
Just following up with that, would you be comfortable next year, your two seniors are post players, would you be comfortable starting two freshmen post players' 'I'm a big believer, Sharon, in the fact that I'll play the best players. We'll work hard in the summer, we 'll work hard in pre-season and I'll put the best five players on the floor and in the best combination. If they are seniors, if they are freshmen, it doesn 't make any difference, I'm going to put the best players on the floor. Both Lesha and Danielle can play. They can flat out play. Now, their maturity and stepping in and playing right away, I think they both have those types of abilities, likewise with the other three. Everybody will battle for playing time, everybody is going to battle to earn their spots and I'm convinced that we're going to keep getting better.'
Can you talk about the uniqueness of signing so many players from this club team and just your comfort level with that and having observed them 'I mean, did you observe them playing together at all' You talked about their comfort level playing together, have you seen them play together' 'We've seen them play a lot. I think they've been together, they 're coached by Jerald Davis of the Chicago Hoops Express in the summertime and we 've watched them. And we watched them a lot individually as well on their high school teams and we've seen them a lot throughout this summer. We were at pretty much every one of their games this summer, watched them play, understanding they fit our system. They are the type of player I want to coach and they bonded with me right away, with our staff and like I said before, most importantly, with our players.'
Lisa, you have potentially, two more (scholarships) to give, if you don't get the players you're waiting for, would you bank those ' 'Absolutely, Mike, there's five great players here, we return a nice cast of players with our current team and if we roll those over to the following year we will. If there's an opportunity to sign two more, we certainly will do that as well.'
Also, can you talk about the size of the class, are there advantages or disadvantages to having five or seven in a class' 'Well, right now we're trying to address our needs and we want to make a statement that we're going to compete and we need players and we need players to combine with our current players. When you have a group of youngsters there's going to be excitement with that. They bring energy and enthusiasm and that's what I'm all about. We'll do a lot of teaching and instructing and bring these players along. I'm convinced, because of the blend, they've combined with what I'm looking for. I'm extremely confident in their abilities. I 'm extremely confident in the fact that they are going to be young and they 're going to be eager. I love that energy. If they're ready to play, they 'll step out there and play, and right now if you ask any of them, I'm sure they'll tell you they're ready to play.'
Did it just so happen that you had one player from every position or is that something you tried to map out' 'We addressed athleticism and we have five athletes here. They happen to fall into our needs. We graduate Lello (Gebisa) and Emily (Ashbaugh), obviously, we needed a post player. There are vacancies there that needed to be filled. Our perimeter is thin this year. We needed perimeter players. We addressed our needs and I'm extremely satisfied and very happy with my staff's hard work to bring in these types of players.'
We'll take a question from our chat'You seem to recruit close to home, do you have any plans to expand the recruiting radius ' 'Our job is to bring the very best recruits to the University of Wisconsin. Obviously, we have a midwestern flair to our recruiting class. I think what that does is that allows our student-athletes' families to come and watch them play. It just so happens that it is a midwestern flavor and I like it. I'm very excited about this class. We will broaden our bases as far as we need be. But our job is to bring the very best that we can to the University.'
What was the impression in the homes, Lisa, when you had a chance to talk with the families about the new staff and the new excitement levels with this program' 'I think when you're new and you 're excited as I am about Wisconsin and it's an institution that is easy to sell when you're passionate about it. The home setting was wonderful. You get to sit down and you get to talk freely and have them ask questions. All five of these families are terrific. They are wonderful and their family has become part of our family. So, it was really neat. You get a nice home-cooked meal, which is another benefit to that as well. I'm excited about these kids; I'm excited to get to know their families more. They are great athletes, but more importantly, they are great, great people. '
We have one other from the chat'Can you explain the Shawna Nicols situation with her scholarship' 'I just want to make sure I'm doing things right. Shawna Nicols has been declared medically disqualified, which means she will remain on scholarship, but that does free up a scholarship for us, as well.'
Lisa, Keith Noll had lauded your to recruiting in Wisconsin and your camaraderie you have with coaches in the state. Can you speak to that ' 'I think having a Wisconsin heritage and having coached in the state for 12 years prior to my arrival at Wisconsin, I'm familiar with a lot of coaches. Some of them are still coaching and if not, I know them. Again, I give hats off to my staff, who made contact with those coaches, actually the very first day on the job. The congratulations, there, goes to my staff. They've contacted those high school coaches to reintroduce me as the head coach at Wisconsin and we will do the best to put barriers around our state and keep the best here.'
Lisa, were you familiar with, or did you know these kids before you came to Wisconsin' When you were recruiting with Drake ' 'We were recruiting Jolene Anderson, to Wisconsin, obviously we recruited her and we're excited about Jolene. Denise Ianello had a nice contact with'had prior introduction to the Hoops Express kids and that connection. I mean, all of us are a part of this whole recruiting base, but it's important that we continue things. When we recruited Kandace Evans, we had gotten into Michigan and we watched Lesha Jones play. So prior to the first day on the job, not all of them, but as soon as we were here, it was about a week and we had already made contact.'
We have another question from the chat line'Were you pleased with how your staff came together, since it was a partly new staff. And were you able to use any West Coast connections through Denise Ianello' 'My staff is terrific, they are outstanding. I work with three very fine women and they've done a great job recruiting. We did not go out west. We did not make that west coast connection this year, that's not to say we won't in the future.'
