March 7, 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. - Coach Striegler Speaks about the Women's Basketball team and Celeste Hudson
ORLANDO, Fla.-UCF women's basketball head coach Gail Striegler spoke about the upcoming 2005 Coca-Cola Atlantic Sun Women's Basketball Championship Monday during the postseason teleconference. The Golden Knights enter the tournament as the No. 1 seed after posting an 18-9 season record and 16-4 A-Sun record.
Question: Give us an idea of how things are going for UCF. You guys got off to a 3-6 start and then went on two huge winning streaks late in the season.
Striegler: Our team has played well at different times during the year. They have come out and done some really nice things by getting the ball inside and then back out to our shooters. We had some pretty good stretches and have done a lot of it with the defense and rebounding.
Question: I did want to congratulate on earning the top seed and winning the regular season championship, but now you have to look forward to a new season, the tournament season. You guys have had some success in the tournament but it has been a few years since you have captured that championship. What's it going to take for you this weekend?
Striegler: It is going to take a lot out of a lot of people. Three games in a row is a lot to play. You are going to have to have some luck go your way, you have to go out there and be able to execute, play defense for three straight games and hit some big time shots. I think that every kid on your team at some point in the tournament has got to step up and fill their roll because it takes the whole team to win the tournament.
Question: Your final road swing down the stretch, you lost to Troy, you lost to Belmont, and in that Belmont game, Celeste Hudson went down with an injury. Can you give us an idea about her injury? It sounds like you guys got it going in the last game without her, did the rest of the team step up?
Striegler: The rest of the team defiantly stepped it up the last game and came out and played very well. Again, we won with our defense and rebounding which will have to be our key at the conference tournament. Celeste (Hudson) is out the rest of the year, she is out 6-8 weeks with the injury so she will not be playing in the conference tournament. We will have to make a few adjustments along the way and have some kids step up so we have a shot at winning it all.
Question: Give us an idea about that stretch. What did you do better? Everyone has talked today about how you guys are the top dog with the bulls-eye on your back. Did you get your post players playing well? That is what everyone seems to be scared of, your post game.
Striegler: I think that what has won us games all year long is our defense and our rebounding. I think that by far we have four of the best post players in the conference and throughout the year have had outside scoring to go with it. That is very difficult to guard when you have outside shooters who can knock it down and the post players inside which you can't double down on them as much and leaves them free to score. If you flip that around and do double down on the post players, you have the guards on the outside to knock it down. We have had a good combination of that and bonded to playing defense and also going to the boards hard. Championships are usually won with defense and rebounding and I think that is what it is going to take this week.
Question: Celeste is averaging 11 points per game, leading your team as far as the average goes. Who do you see as filling that void, who is going to step up and be that scoring roll for you?
Striegler: I don't think that it is going to just one person. Celeste did a lot of things for us, she was probably our best guard defender. She was second in assists, leads in scoring and second in rebounding. It is going to take a combination of a bunch of people to fill that role and I think that they can do it. It is just going to be everybody having to step-up and fill parts of it. Shayla Smith stepped in against Lipscomb and did a great job defensively. Lashaunda Slade came up with 10, Keunta Miles came up with 10 points against Lipscomb. People are just going to have to fill their roles. I mean there are going to be different roles for everybody and every night they will have to step up. We only have nine healthy kids now so all nine of them are going to play every night and all nine of them have to fill their role in order for us to win it.
Question: You have had two different kinds of games against Mercer; one that you controlled from the start, second one you had to dig out of a hole. Talk a little bit about the match-up.
Striegler: I don't think that we dictated much of that second game. They did a lot of triangle, two, box and one which we had not seen very much of throughout the season so it took us a little while to adjust. Brenda (Welch-Nichols) does a great job coaching and I am sure she will throw some news things at us again and it is just how we adjust to it. We are going to have some different changes for them too because it is a different look without Celeste out there. I expect it to be a fantastic game, a lot more like the one we played in Macon. I think that it is going to be a grind it out between the top two defensive teams in the conference.
Question: If you are fortunate to play in that third game, how different is your substitution pattern going to be having a short bench?
Striegler: I think that it is going to be different the whole tournament. Celeste Hudson gave us 25-30 minutes a game and you take her off the court, that gives the other kids a lot more minutes. We will have to change up the offense that we run. Shelby Weber will have to go out and play the three a little bit more at different times and guard the outside. There will be quite a few different looks that we will have to give kids some rest in between so they are not playing 25-30 minutes every single game. If you do that, the kids will be dead tired by the end. It is just using all of your time-outs wisely by giving them breathers in between and doing the best you can to keep their legs as fresh as possible.
Question: How do you plan your practices throughout the year in anticipation of using your bench?
Striegler: We have used our bench most of the year. I think that every one our kids gets in almost every game, I don't think that I have kids who have not been in every game. It will be different because you have kids that will have to fill different roles and will have to step up. We will have to find someone who can get us a couple more points each game, someone else step up and be a defensive stopper on the guards and then someone will have to take care of the boards because Celeste did a great job on all of those. I am sure that people will play us differently, they will probably pack down on our post players a little bit harder and a couple of the other kids will have to hit the outside shots for us in order for us to open it back up.
The UCF Golden Knights take on the Mercer Bears in game one of the 2005 Coca-Cola Atlantic Sun Women's Basketball Championship on Thursday, March 10 at 2 p.m. est. The winner of that game will play the winner of the Belmont/Stetson game on Friday at 7 p.m. est. All games will be aired live over the internet at www.ucfathletics.com.