Saluki Basketball conducts annual Media Day at Stadium Grille
11/02/2009 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 2, 2009
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Saluki men's basketball head coach Chris Lowery and women's basketball head coach Missy Tiber discussed the prospects for their teams during Media Day at Stadium Grille.
Here is transcript of the press conference:
Head Coach Chris Lowery
"We're pretty excited for the future. Our sophomore class is really important to us, because we feel that our second-year guys are going to continue to be the foundation of the program. Carlton Fay is coming off of his first year of starting. He played very little behind Matt (Shaw) and Randal (Falker) as a freshman, to playing most of the minutes as a sophomore. We feel that our depth and our youth are still going to be our strengths, because we feel that we can score a lot of different ways this year as opposed to the past.
We have four guys here with us: Nick Evans, Carlton Fay, Justin Bocot, and Kevin Dillard. Tony Freeman had class, so he couldn't be here. Right now, these are our four guys who have played the hardest in practice. That's why I wanted them here. These four guys have been great, as far as setting the tone that we want to play. I know that people saw those shirts that said "Bringing Back the D"-- that is something that is important to our program. We have to get back to Floorburn U, and I think we set that tone defensively in our first game, where we played very hard.
Three guys from my staff are here: Coach (Brad) Korn, Koby Altman and Marcus Belcher. Coach (Lance) Irvin is actually out recruiting.
The thing about our program is this -- we want to get back to where we can intimidate defensively and where we can take people out of the stuff that they are trying to do. It helps that we had so many young guys play significant roles last year, because now we feel that it has prepared us. We learned a lot from losing. I think it really prepared us this year headed into the spring, summer and the fall, as we prepared differently than when those guys were mostly true freshmen.
We're excited about what we have, and as individuals, we feel we have depth and talent and backups for each position. As far as anything else, we haven't set any goals for the team -- it's one game at a time. We don't set goals for ourselves. The only one we want to set is that we want to win a conference championship. Because we feel that if you do that, you have a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament. As players, they all have their individual goals that they set for themselves, and we never try to defer their dreams and hopes, but we want them to play as hard as they can. The best thing about this team is that we're not coaching effort, and we're not coaching attitude. Effort has been great, attitude has been where it needs to be for us to prosper and get better as a team.
We watched film yesterday, and it was the first time in a long time where we gave them constructive criticism, and then we practiced and they carried it over and did it better than they did it in the game. We had 10 turnovers in the game, and I don't know if we had a game last year where we didn't have more turnovers than assists. It was good to see that we do have guys capable of taking care of the ball. Kevin Dillard, Kendall Brown, Justin Bocot, Tony Freeman -- we have four good ball-handlers, and if one of those guys is out, we feel that we have guys who can run our basketball team, as opposed to the last couple of years where if Bryan (Mullins) didn't have it, we were a little bit nervous.
I think you will see the progression of our `bigs' -- those four guys will get in there and get better and better each game. We're as big as we've ever been. I think we did a good job of getting our big guys touches without turning it over. Sometimes, when you tell them to get it inside, they throw bad passes, just because a coach is yelling at them to throw it inside. As far as the program is concerned, I think we're building in the right direction, back to where we need to go. But you have to give credit to these kids for going through the year that they went through, and then coming back with their heads up ready to compete. What they were unwilling to do last year, they are very willing to do and teach to the new guys in our program."
Can you talk about what you saw defensively that you didn't see last year?
"Talking, rotating, active hands, and there were 34 points at the half. Last year, if there were 30 or higher in a half, it was because Bryan had about 15 by himself. Anthony Booker didn't play well, but he had tips, deflections, diving on the floor. It didn't show up in his stats, but he never got more than four last year on the play-hard chart. That's what we talked to him about--he didn't show up in the stat sheet, but he did the stuff that he was unwilling to do a year before. That was very good, because we couldn't get him to play hard last year. On that side of the ball, we're getting better and we're going to be good on that side of the ball. I tell them everyday, 'you're going to be a very good defensive team.' Plus, we can get in transition based on how we guard, with the different level athlete on the wing that we have."
How has conditioning and weighttraining helped the players this season?"
"Justin and Kevin didn't fall down when somebody was guarding them. Last year, they fell down more than they stood up, when defenders got close to them. When you're a guard, you've got to be able to grind people and take a bump, and I think we showed it. Not having a lot of turnovers, taking bumps and finishing plays is important. We recruited a certain way, too. We recruited athletes and certain kids who we felt could help us be better in transition. It is very evident now -- Kevin was 155 pounds, and now he's 170. Justin is strong, but you can't get weight on him. At least he's made improvements where physically he can handle bumps and stuff that goes on in the game. But as far as our `bigs,' they're very strong right now. We made a commitment to stay four days a week up until our first exhibition. Right now, we're staying with three a week, just to make sure we have a competitive advantage. We're going to see how far we can go still using three days a week into the season."
Talk about the play of your inside guys.
"We need to score better on the inside. We got a lot of touches, but we didn't finish a lot of plays off. They're not afraid to shoot. Nobody had a deer-in-the-headlights look when they caught it on the block. Either the move wasn't tough enough, or it just missed, and that is a good sign, even this early. We felt that we got enough touches in there, we just have to convert more baskets."
How important is restoring your home-court advantage?
"We lost six games at home, and I think we had previously lost five in six years. They have to understand that -- I haven't talked to them much yet, just because I want to get them focused on getting better. You have to win your home games. Winning home games is the key to any season, especially in the conference. You win all of your home games, and split on the road, you have a chance to win a conference championship.
Head Coach Missy Tiber
"Practice has been like a roller-coaster for the past two weeks. For those of you who are fans of Six Flags or Cedar Point, that is what practice has felt like. We have worked very hard, made some gains, and we are climbing up that hill, and we get to the top of the roller-coaster ride, and then we go down really fast. I can see us making some great strides and some understanding of what we are trying to do but it's early.
I have been the head coach for just over six months to the day, and I have been just working with these girls as an entire unit for just over two weeks. So the process is moving along. We are really trying to dedicate time to the fast-break offense put into place, and we are facing struggles, and I think that last night in our exhibition game, we were able to see some of those struggles and a lot of it is coming from the fact that we don't have a true point guard at this time. Katerina Garcia, who was the projected starter as a freshman, has a significant injury at this time, and we will have her in four to six weeks from now.
We have two young ladies --Kristine Presswood and Stephanie Neptune -- who have done a phenomenal job at that role, but at the same time, we are trying to teach them in a two-week period how to run the point guard position. In this system, where it takes so much pressure to run the position, it's a difficult process for them, but they are learning, and they are picking it up. I have confidence that we will get things worked out.
Last night, after I left the game, I went home and took the DVD home with me, and I was a little frustrated. Today, I am a lot more encouraged after watching the film, because I know many of the mistakes we made are very much correctable, and I am looking forward to the future of the program running our system.
I would like to talk a little bit more about Katrina Swingler, because I think that she has the potential to be one of the best players in our program this year. She is one of the kids that can play guard and forward positions on the outside as well on the inside for us. Unfortunately, she never sees a shot that she doesn't like, and we are going to work with that on her a little bit, but she has the freedom to let it fly. She is going to be a great player for us and also be one of the better players in the MVC, once we get her tamed just a little bit.
With me is a special kid, and her name is Stephanie Neptune. She transferred here with me after playing three years for at the Division II level. She was a Division II All-American, and she graduated at that level. Unfortunately, her sophomore year she tore her ACL, so she redshirted that year, and we received a wavier from the NCAA, so she did not have to sit out this year, and she has just been tremendous to have along with me at this stage, because she brings along a mindset. She just came back from winning back-to-back championships and playing two-straight years in the NCAA Tournament. Then she takes that mindset and leads our team in practices to teach some of the young kids as well as a team that just came off back-to-back years of struggle, on what it takes on a daily basis to work hard. She is one of the hardest-working kids that we have on the team and one of the hardest-working kids that I have ever coached. You are going to see a lot of great things from her, and from this day forth, this year and until we get Katerina Garcia back, she will now be our starting point guard. As a coaching staff, we have made that decision last night and today.
It's some exciting times for our program, and we are looking forward to building this program to be consistent on a daily basis, whether in practice or in games and then hope we can get to the point where we can also consistently competing for Missouri Valley Conference championship. If we can do that, then we can look ahead, and at some point it is our goal to make the Saluki women's basketball program one that can make the NCAA basketball tournament.
Our system is one that we have to rely on taking good care of the basketball and really push the ball up and down the basketball court. Last night, I was very frustrated, because we had eight assists and 25 turnovers. That's not going to do it, and our goal is to get up to 80 points, and we can't do that if we don't take better care of the basketball. Last night, when I went home and watched the film, most of our turnovers didn't come from the transitions, but from the half-court setup. The reason we were playing half-court is because we gave up 18 offensive rebounds, so those are my frustrations. We have to take better care of the ball, and we have to stop the other team and get defensive rebounds on the first shots, so we can get out and run.
You are talking a program that averaged 60 points a game last year, and it wasn't up tempo, and it's a pretty big change, because you probably want more horses. My favorite word to yell was run, and I yelled constantly throughout the game, so I think it is a big change for them physically. I thought that we were a little better conditioned than we were, but our roster is so depleted with just eight healthy kids, so that makes it difficult. I do believe that they are buying into it, because I do see them doing what we want them to do, but not enough of it. It was our first time out, and it will come."
On Katie Wagner's play
"Last night, we discussed it as a staff, and if Katie should be in the starting lineup, and that's what we are pondering right now, because she gives us an aspect that a lot of kids are not willing to do. It is to go in there and do all the dirty work. She has no ego about anything she does. She doesn't have to take the shots. She is a great screener. She understands the game, and she is just as hard-nose as it comes. We are battling back and forth about one of our starting positions that is open, and she will be in the mix for it. I think that she just brings the mindset that she loves Southern Illinois, and that she text-messaged my graduate assistant to get a copy of the game, and she just talked about how it was the greatest day of her life yesterday on the basketball court, so I look forward to great things from her on the basketball court this year.
Here you are, a first-time head coach at a Division I level, and you are trying to turn a program around. You have a kid that had played in high school and was a good high school player, but hasn't played since high school in four years, so you I'm thinking, my goodness this is a tough situation. It didn't take long for her to convince me that she needed to be with this basketball program. Just her passion for Saluki Athletics and her desire to work hard, she leaves the gym last on most nights, because she is in there shooting and is trying to get better, and she is getting the rust off now. I think that by mid-December or so, she will be cranking on full cylinders."
On scheduling Vanderbilt for the home opener
"Someone asked me at the Valley media day how excited I was about it, and I said well, you may be excited, and I'm not, because they are usually a top 10 team in the country. But they did lose four or five starters from year ago. I think that it is good for all programs to play tough competition. You are talking about Vanderbilt -- a top 10 team in the nation, Texas A & M, another top 10 team in the nation, so we are going to put our kids in that situation, but we also have lots of games that we should be very competitive in, so it will give us a chance to win games. Our focus is going to be winning every single game that we play at home. As a head coach, we haven't lost a game on our home court as a coach and a player, and I think it's been 27 or 28 games, but our goal will always be to protect our home court and then there are the non-conference games on the road. We should expect to compete and try to win at least half of those on the road in our first season."
