Oct. 12, 2006
IRVING, Texas - UCF head women's basketball coach Gail Striegler shared the spotlight with the 11 other league coaches at the 2006 Conference USA Women's Basketball Media Day on Thursday in Tulsa, Okla.
The event began with the CSTV Coaches' Show. Hosted by Brenda VanLengen and Ann Schatz, the broadcast featured the coaches from each school as well as selected student-athletes, including 2006-07 C-USA Preseason Player of the Year Jillian Robbins from Tulsa.
The coaches' show will initially air Thursday at 6 p.m. ET on CSTV, with a rebroadcast at 9 p.m. ET that same day.
After a one-hour break for lunch, the event continued with the media day press conferences from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. Striegler joined Joe Curl from Houston and Joye Lee-McNelis of Southern Miss in the first time slot from 2-2:20 p.m.
Among the topics discussed at media day was the preseason coaches poll, which was released by the conference on Wednesday. With 10 first-place votes, Rice was picked to win the league with 142 points, while both 2005-06 champion Tulsa and SMU were tied for second with 113 points. Houston (99 pts.) was third followed by Southern Miss (97). The Golden Knights, who finished last season with a 5-11 mark in the conference and went 7-21 overall, were ranked 11th.
"I expected the preseason poll to reflect last year's standings, but I truly believe that our team will have a much stronger showing," said Striegler. "We have six seniors who are ready to step up and all of our players are willing to work hard and do whatever it takes to be one of the top teams in the conference."
Following her press conference appearance, Striegler joined her colleagues at Tulsa's Reynolds Center court, where they hosted two basketball clinics for 200 area elementary students.
UCF opens the regular season on Saturday, Nov. 11 at Appalachian State. The Golden Knights first home game is against Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.
Season tickets for UCF women's basketball are currently available by calling (407) UCF-1000. Single-game tickets go on sale Nov. 1. For the latest news and information on the Golden Knights, tickets or apparel log on to www.ucfathletics.com - the official site for UCF athletics.
Conference USA Women's Basketball Media Tip-off Quotes
October 12, 2006 ? Tulsa, Okla.
Gail Striegler, UCF Head Coach
"We're excited to be here. We're excited about Tulsa hosting the championship tournament. This is such a great venue for us to play in and this area is very much attuned to the game."
"Our team is young as far as the players we had on the court last year, and with those that we lost. We're excited about the opportunity to enter our second year in the conference and build from where we were last year. The kids have worked very hard, and we should have an exciting year. Hopefully we'll step up, make some waves and move above where we were ranked in the preseason rankings."
Who do you need to have step up this year?
"To be honest I don't know if we have just one player that needs to compete. We have got a lot of kids that are all going to have to step up. We are going to change some of the style that we have played because we really don't have a go-to person. We had a girl out last year named Celeste Hudson who was a great player and earned a lot of accolades in the Atlantic Sun the season before. Francine Houston can score quite a few points on the floor for us, so there is not one single player that I can point out that I can say is going to be the difference maker for us."