Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Opp Previews 2002-03 Season at Local Media Day
10/09/2002 | 12:00:00 | Women's Basketball
Oct. 9, 2002
Murphysboro, Ill. - Southern Illinois University head women's basketball coach Lori Opp addressed members of the media earlier today at the 17th Street Warehouse during the team's annual media day.
Opp, who talked briefly about the upcoming 2002-03 season, appeared to be extremely optimistic about this year's team.
Quotes from Opp's press conference:
On personal health... "I am feeling the best I felt in well over a year. I feel very healthy and things are going extremely well for me on the health side of things. For those of you that don't know, I had some health problems last year, but I put all that behind me. I have a wonderful staff that took care of me during that time."
On the 2002-03 season... "We are hopeful that we as a staff can work hard with our team and make sure that we do some good things this year. We have five new faces on our team, including three junior college transfers. The three junior college players are going to make an immediate impact on our program and we are going to do some very good things. The individual workouts and the preseason conditioning have gone extremely well and I am excited about the season."
On replacing Holly Teague... "Holly is a hard player to replace. She did a great job at the point for us. What Holly really brought to our program was that she played with such fire and intensity and that's hard to match. We do have a junior college point guard that we brought in from Southeastern Illinois. Her name is Dana Pinkston. We also have Chris Perry who is much improved. She was a freshman in our program last year. In addition, several of our players stayed this summer, went to summer school and had an opportunity to play. We're hoping with them playing together this summer, they developed better chemistry that will help us."
On the addition of Staci Starkweather... "I think Staci will make a tremendous difference. She has a lot of fire and a lot of enthusiasm. She's excited about having the opportunity to coach at this level. She is originally from Pinckneyville and her family is from the area as well. She graduated from SIU so she brings a lot of things to the table."
On Molly McDowell... "Molly started off the season last year with two shoulder surgeries. She was a little sluggish to begin with so we had to ease her back into things. Her leadership is going to be invaluable to our team. She is a true competitor. She has struggled through three years of what she has felt have been sub-par performances. I'm hoping that in her senior year, she will step up and be the Miss Illinois basketball that she was in high school, and play up to her capabilities."
On this year's non-conference schedule... "I think it helps you sometimes to schedule opponents that, in my mind and as a staff, we refer to as schedule up a little bit. Our schedule at times has been weak. To help the conference's RPI, the teams in the conference and ourselves, we need to play better competition because the women's side of the Valley is tough. SMS, Drake, Creighton and Northern Iowa are good every year and all those teams are incredibly competitive. Game in and game out, it's really a battle in the conference so we need to play the DePaul's, the Kentucky's and the Northwestern's to get ready for our conference schedule."
Competing in the Valley... "As a staff you like to dream of picking yourself in the top four. We finished 10th last year. Realistically, I think we can get to sixth place in the conference. That may be quite a jump in your minds, but I know what we have returning, what we've brought in and what other teams have. I really do feel like we can get to sixth. I would also like to see us get to 15 wins. That's a pretty big goal considering last year we only had six. I'm going to depend on my staff to help get us there and I think we can do well."
