Murray State University Athletics
Weekly Press Conference
1/17/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Monday, Jan. 17
Questions were addressed to assistant coach Rob Cross, as head coach Joi Felton was absent Monday.
Opening statement: We split on the road last week, which was OK. We sure would have liked to have gone down and gotten two victories -- and definitely were capable of getting two victories. We had a little bit of a lineup change, and I'm sure a couple of you might have a question about that, and I'll talk about that in-depth as you want me to. It was basically just to shake things up. We need to do something a little different, try to get a little more offensive fire power coming off the bench. With Ashley Hayes coming in off the bench, that gives her an opportunity to come in and be that "Vinnie Johnson" type and score off the bench.
I'm looking forward to this week. We have two winable games, one on the road at Martin (on Tuesday). That's always a tough place to play. They have a very good post player in Andreika Jackson, who's capable of putting up a double-double on anybody in our league. They also have a really good point guard and shooter in Danielle Page.
We have Tennessee State coming in here (Saturday), a fantastic offensive rebounding team, which is, obviously, an Achilles heel of ours, so we're looking forward to that challenge. Our young women have stepped up and, I think, kind of gelled a little bit on this first OVC road trip.
On the lineup change at Jacksonville State: The lineup change came about -- at Samford, the first half was so bad, we went into halftime, and Coach (Felton) was like, "Well, who should we start?" and the four of us were just kind of looking at each other: "Who do you play?" Nobody's doing a very good job, so we just took a stab, threw Jill Fulkerson out there because of her ability to shoot the ball, and she's a very vocal leader, so we thought that might help, and it worked out for her. She had a good half (career-high 12 points with four three-pointers). We decided to go ahead and make the change, put Jill in the game, move Shaleea Petty over to the 2 (shooting guard) some, inserted Gerraca Matthews as the 3 (small forward). With her speed, that gives us the chance to get out and run the floor a little bit better. All of a sudden, Rebecca Remington's playing the 4 (power forward).
You're smaller, but you're getting beaten on the boards, anyway. Now, you've got a chance to outrun some people, and it worked out for us. So, vocal leadership helped quite a bit. Ashley Hayes did a fantastic job in her role. She understands -- as a player, Ashley understands that it really doesn't matter who starts the game; what matters is who's in the game when the game's on the line. If you notice the Jacksonville State game, you'll see that Ashley Hayes came up big with 21 points and four threes in the second half. This gives her the chance to watch the game and come in and be an effective scorer off the bench, which we really haven't had a lot of this season, and that was the major reason for the change.
It gives us quite an offensive punch in that lineup -- in the initial lineup -- with Fulkerson's ability to shoot it, it gives us an offensive punch in the initial lineup, and then, you have Ashley Hayes coming off the bench to provide scoring ability.
About coming from behind after trailing by 15 points in the first half at Jacksonville State: It really started at the last media timeout of the first half. We got some leadership from some players stepping up during that timeout, challenging each other. Then, we went in at halftime and told them "We're only down eight at the half, and we just played, possibly, the second-worst half of basketball we've played. Jacksonville State's played up to their ability" is basically what we told our student-athletes. They challenged each other. Coach Felton challenged them and they challenged each other to step up, make plays.
The big thing we were proud of in that game: Things weren't going very well for us in the first half, but they stuck together as teammates and fought through that, rather than bickering with each other and trying to blame somebody else. People stood up and took responsibility, and that's really what happened. It just continued from that point into the second half, and once we got on a roll, Ashley Hayes came in and had a chance to get open a little bit and get off some shots. Her stepping up and coming off the bench and providing leadership off the bench helped quite a bit as well.
And Ashley understands. It really doesn't matter who starts the game, to be honest with you. The only people that that really matters to are the people that make up the stat sheet, because they need to know who to put the first five on there. Other than that, to a player, a player just wants to play. And if you look at her minutes and her production, that definitely did not go down. She has accepted that role graciously and has the ability to be a leader coming off the bench, and she's excited about that.
(The lineup change) is something for the time being. I don't think any coach will tell you, "My lineup is set in stone for the whole year," because you don't know what's going to happen week to week, practice to practice, you just don't know. The players determine who plays, and that's basically what's happened. We feel like we've got a lineup that can help us win ball games, but that may change. You just don't know from week to week what's going to happen.
On Fulkerson going from averaging 7.2 minutes per game to starting: Jill's a great young lady. She's handled her role coming off the bench, and she's been inserted into games -- with having not played -- at the end of a game to knock down a game-winning shot. Jill understands the game of basketball, and she's handled the starting role. If she starts the rest of the year and averages 40 minutes a game, she'll handle that the same way she handled six minutes a game. It's really not an issue with her; she just wants to play the game, and she has an understanding of how things should be, and has handled it very well.
On matching rebounds with Jacksonville State after trailing 16-5 in rebounds early: The bottom line is, I said last week, and we tell the girls all the time, that's all about their attitude. They challenged each other. It came from every person on the team, from the last person off the bench to the starting five. Everybody on the court was challenging each other to not let that happen again, and I really believe they finally understand.
We're not going to be a great rebounding team. I mean, there's no secret about that. I had a coach tell me before we played them that they were the worst rebounding team in the country, and I just laughed at him. I said, "You know good and well that's not true!"
That's got to come from within them, and I think that they finally understand. They have an opportunity. We have six teams right now at 2-2 in our league. Tennessee Tech's got a little bit of a jump on people at 4-0, but they've played a lot of people at home. There is an opportunity to win a championship there.
If we can limit people's rebounding advantage and go get rebounds on the defensive end, rather than just stand and watch another team. Against Samford, three times in the second half, they get down to one second on the shot clock, they shoot the ball and somebody just runs right in. We have three people around it, nobody's going to get it, they're just standing, watching. They run in, get the ball and put it in or they pull it back out and run their offense for another 25 or 30 seconds, which we definitely don't want to have happen. They stepped up and made the commitment to go get the ball.
On Jessie Hirsch getting injured at Samford and going back in: Jessie's a warrior-type player. She's a glue player who does all the dirty things. She's going to dive after every loose ball. Sometimes it's not a smart decision to dive after it, but you've got to applaud her effort. She's going to go, no matter what it takes. She's going to do whatever it takes. She has a tendency to get under other players' skin because of that. A lot of people don't like playing against her in pick-up games -- her teammates included -- because she doesn't care who's on the other side. She's going to be physical and try to rough you up, so she catches a lot of elbows. She drew -- I think that's the second or third technical she's gotten another player to commit the other night in the Jacksonville State game. One of their players just kicked her; she just finally got tired of it and just kicked her. She's willing to pay whatever price it takes to win. We are really excited about that and the fact that other players on our team are finally starting to understand where she's coming from, and that's rubbing off on them.
