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Ute Hoop Diaries With Coach Levrets
12/29/2010 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2010
As the women's basketball team gets ready to wrap up its non-conference schedule with Utah State on Saturday, interim head coach Anthony Levrets sat down with UtahUtes.com to talk about his thoughts on the first part of the season.
You won back-to-back games before the holiday break, after suffering some tough losses before that. How important were those wins to your morale?
The wins were huge for morale. More importantly, the time we had off between the Mississippi State game and before we played SMU was important. The kids could be students for a little while. We also had some practice time without having to play or prepare for an opponent. It was all about us getting ourselves better and more comfortable within our new roles. One of the things that happened early in the year is that Taryn Wicijowski went down. It wasn't just that we lost her, but we lost her right before this crazy stretch in our season where we played eight games in 16 days. We never had a chance for people to get comfortable through practice in new roles and in new positions. The wins were big, but more importantly I think the practice time for our team was big.
What changes have you had to make since losing Taryn Wicijowski to a knee injury?
I think the biggest change for us has been figuring out what our rotation is going to be. Right away, we moved Michelle Harrison to the four, and that didn't feel like the right thing. We started Rachel Messer, and that didn't quite feel like the right thing - not because Rachel or Michelle did anything wrong, it just didn't feel right for the team. Through some trial and error, have gotten it better. I don't know if it's completely right, but it's better. We're going to start Michelle Harrison at the three and Diana Rolniak at the five. As the year gets on you shorten your rotation up, and I'm really comfortable with Rachel playing the one, two, or three guard positions. She's the only player on our team who can do that. And it's comfortable having her come off the bench. For Brittany Knighton, who had started for quite awhile, she's more comfortable sitting at the beginning of the game and coming off the bench. I think the rotation is more comfortable for everyone, including me.
Which game do you think you learned the most from?
We better have learned from everything. I've learned a lot about our team. It was just as difficult for them as it was for me. It was a two-way street. You have a whole offseason, a whole preseason, a few games and 30-some practices to find what your philosophy is going to be and what your team is going to be, and then all that changes immediately with a season-ending injury. It was extremely difficult. But I think we now know who we are.
I think the Idaho State game was a really valuable lesson for us. We scrimmaged them early in the year and beat them soundly. Then to be up in that game in the second half and lose in overtime, I think our kids finally understood how important every single possession is. I think for a young team, that may be the first and most important lesson to learn. It's not whether you're up or down 10, or the first play of the game or the last play of the game, it's every play of every game, so when it matters, the habits are there. And I think we're finally learning that.
You are leading the league in scoring defense. What makes you such a great defensive team?
We have committed to it. Usually young teams are further ahead offensively than defensively. So early in the year we committed that wasn't going to be the case with this team. When you lose point production out of your lineup, it becomes even more important that you limit easy shots and easy baskets. We are not as good yet at 3-point field goal percentage defense, but that is an area that we are addressing and if we can get that area down under 30-percent, we'll have a chance to be in the game. I would like to see it at 27 or 28-percent.
Where is the team going to need to improve the most to be successful in the conference?
We need to improve at every aspect of the game, every day. That has not changed. We have to get better executing on offense. We have to get better at the free-throw line, which we are really committing to. Everybody has a job to do on every play. On young teams, sometimes they're not doing their job. It's not that they don't want to do their job, but they don't know what it is, or they forget, or they get tired, and they don't have background to pull from to get through it. It's learning how to do your job, whatever it is, on every play. Because you always have something to do. And we are working at that daily.
You talked early about how young this team is. Who has stepped up?
For Iwalani Rodrigues, obviously her numbers have been great. She's shooting the ball incredibly well and she is scoring for us. We all knew she was going to be good. I think Michelle Plouffe has played really, really well, especially with the expectations of going from being the second post to being the lead post and being asked to score. I'm really pleased with her production. And not just her production, but how she's handled herself. I think Brittany Knighton quietly is getting better and better all the time, and at some point in time all the little steps that she's taking are going to pay off in games. She's an incredibly talented young kid and is making strides. At some point it's all going to come together for her.
Janita Badon and Michelle Harrison are your two upperclassmen with the most minutes. What have been their biggest contributions?
I'm really proud of Janita. She's led for us at a time when we've needed leadership, and not by yelling and screaming, but by being positive with people and helping her teammates and helping talk people through things that have needed it. I'm really proud of her for that.
With Michelle she's just like a freshman in some ways. Stanford plays differently than what we do, so it's been a learning process for her. Sometimes I've expected more out of her because she is a senior, but she truly is a freshman in our system. More importantly, the role we're asking her to fulfill is totally different than the role she was expected to have at Stanford. It may not be until the last five games of the season, but at some point in time it's all going to come together and she's going to contribute mightily. She's done really good things. She had 12 rebounds against New Mexico State, and she keeps balls alive. She's doing a lot of good things, but offensively we need production from her. At some point in time, it's going to come.
What do you expect out of Utah State on Saturday?
It's an in-state rivalry game. We know every time we play an in-state school, it's a big deal for them and it has to be a big deal for us - especially after having lost up there last year. All our kids remember that. For us, it's another chance for us to get better. I'd be really happy getting back to .500 before we head to conference play, after everything that we've gone through. I think that would be a good achievement for this team. Like I said earlier, everyone has a job to do on every play. Hopefully we will have more people doing their job than we did in the last game, and that keeps continuing as we go.
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