Murray State University Athletics
Weekly Press Conference
1/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Monday, Jan. 24
Questions were addressed to assistant coach Rob Cross, as head coach Joi Felton was absent Monday.
Opening statement: This past week, we lost on the road in overtime at Martin. It was a tough game. We gave up too many "and ones." Andreika Jackson is a very physical player and a force inside in our conference, even though she is only 5-8. It just shows what you can do when you're an aggressive player. We sent her to the line, I think, 13 times. Six of her baskets, she made the baskets and we fouled her and she made the free throws, and that was huge. They were just little ticky-tack fouls -- they were definitely fouls; it wasn't poor officiating. We just walked over and touched her on top of the head as she shot the ball; it just really wasn't very smart. If we're going to foul somebody, don't let a player get up to the rim. So, we were very, very disappointed in that, and that was, basically, the ball game. That was the difference in the ball game. We sent them to the free-throw line -- we made the ones we got -- but we sent them to the line way too much.
We didn't make too many good decisions down the stretch with the lead with about two minutes left. We had a three-point lead, came down, had a two-on-three break. They had three defenders back, we tried to force a pass into traffic, turned it over, they go down and get a three-point play from Andreika Jackson. It goes into overtime after that, and in overtime, we made some poor decisions, really, in a pressure situation, and we were really disappointed in that, in the way we played.
But, on the other hand, we out-rebounded them by 10, and right now, they're leading our conference in rebounding margin, so that shows, I believe, that our young women, right now, believe that they are capable of rebounding the basketball, and the work that we've done, trying to get them to understand what it takes to rebound in this league, is starting to help a little bit, and the hard work's coming to fruition.
The big thing is: we came back, played a home game. Tennessee State's a very dangerous team, although not picked very high in the pre-season conference picks. They're one of the leading offensive rebounding teams in the country; they lead the OVC in offensive rebounding. We out-rebounded them by one. They got a ton of offensive rebounds -- don't get me wrong; we've still got a lot of work to do -- but out-rebounding an opponent two times in a row, which is a first for us this season, was big for us.
One of the things that has helped that is our guards have really started rebounding exceptionally well. With the new line-up, Rebecca Remington's playing the 4 (power forward) now. She's going to the boards harder in the conference, and is a big player, stepping up when it's conference time and in big games, and Rebecca Remington is certainly a big player; we expect that out of her.
Shaleea Petty, a freshman guard who's only about 5-4, 5-5, but Shaleea can go get rebounds, and she's done that in her last few games.
Jill Fulkerson came in, and we talked about the line-up change last week (at the press conference). One thing Jill provides is leadership and an ability to shoot the ball. Well, in this game against Tennessee State, she did not shoot it well; she was 0-for-5 from three-point range, which will not happen very often. But she ended up closing out our game with the last seven points, had seven points in the last minute-and-a-half, also had six assists and six rebounds and no turnovers in 34 minutes of playing time. It was really a huge game by Jill. We're very, very proud of her, especially for the rebounds. A good point guard should get five or six rebounds a game on the defensive end because, usually, the other team's point guard is getting back, there's nobody there to block them out. Jill is definitely not the best athlete by any stretch of the imagination on our team. For her to come up and get six rebounds just shows her understanding of the game and what she brings to the table.
I'm looking forward to going on this -- quote/unquote -- "Death Valley" road trip. We hope to turn it into a "Sunny Valley" road trip and get Eastern Kentucky back for beating us on our home court. You need to hold your home court and split your road games, probably, to win this conference this year. That's one we need to get back. They beat us on our home court, and it's an important game for us to go and get that back.
The next game, we're going over to Morehead State, another great rebounding team, a tough place to play. Morehead's a much different team at home. They struggled on the road this year; they've been a little bit better at home. They're coming off their first OVC win, so I'm sure they'll be excited. They'll kind of look at us and think, "Well, we let one get away at Murray, because they were beating us by 20-something and then, we came back and had a chance to win the game at the end." They've probably got a little bit of confidence and ready to face us and feel like they need to get a win that they could have stolen on our home court.
On the difference is Remington's play this year: I think part of it (last year) may have been getting used to a new coach; I'm not sure about that, because Rebecca is an exceptional athlete, works extremely hard. One thing that's clicked for Rebecca is she understands, right now, she has about 10 games left in her career, hopefully, three or four more games after that. She understands that. I remember a few years ago, Susan Tackett -- most of you may not remember her -- but her senior year, Susan played extremely well, and Susan understood after all those years, all the hard work she put in, this thing was almost over for her; her career was almost over.
Rebecca, I think, knows that. Rebecca wants to go out on top; she wants to win a conference championship before she leaves. One thing that she's talked to me about was leaving the program in better shape than when she got here. There's no doubt that she will do that. She just decided: "This is it for me. I've got to do everything I can do to win a championship before I get out of Murray State." She's doing that. She's helping the young players understand the work ethic that it takes to play at this level, and she's just been phenomenal in all aspects of the game.
Right now, she's in the top five in conference games in just about every statistical category in the OVC. She's a great free-throw shooter, she shoots the three, she gets to the free-throw line, her field-goal percentage is pretty high, she's one of the top five scorers, top five rebounders in the league right now. She has just been very impressive to me.
One of the most impressive things this year with her is, right now, she's leading the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio in conference games and was not known for her passing over her career here, I promise you that. She's gotten much better at seeing the floor and getting the ball to teammates, and has just been tremendous.
On Remington being an All-OVC First Team candidate: In my mind, yes, without question. There are some great players in this league on the women's side: Emily Christian, certainly, has that ability and has received those accolades in the past from Tennessee Tech. Shanika Freeman, down at Jacksonville State, is a tremendous talent. Tatiana Conceicao, a junior-college transfer over at Southeast Missouri, is doing a great job for them. Those are probably the top three players other than Rebecca right now. I'm a little biased. I truly love the girl, and I would say that I couldn't name a player any better than her in the league that does more for their team than Rebecca Remington.
On the new line-up: I would like to add one thing, before I close: the line-up change, what people have done on the team, accepting their roles.
Ashley Hayes has been tremendous. Her minutes played -- the last game, she didn't play quite as many minutes as she has been -- but her minutes played and her point production have gone up since we moved to the new line-up in conference play, so we're very excited about that. Our guards have stepped up their rebounding, and our post players are starting to come around.
Katie Willinger gave us a few good minutes the last game; she's just got to learn to be able to sustain that over a long period of time. She came in off the bench Saturday night and changed the game for about three minutes, and then, she got a little tired and went the other way.
But then, Kaleena Miller came in and stepped up, something we had never seen from her, with a little offensive punch, scored six points in about two minutes herself. She got in the game and just decided that she was going to take some matters into her own hands. She understands her playing career is almost over, as well. She's a senior, and she wants to contribute to a winning season here.
On Willinger's range: Katie can open things up. She can play inside or outside. She can shoot it. She can actually put it on the floor a little bit, which you haven't seen, but she has that ability; she's just not as confident with it right now as she could be, probably should be. She's shooting 50 percent from three-point range, and that's not just because she's taken a limited number of shots; she can shoot the ball. She can open that up. She also has the ability to score on the block. She's got a chance to be a really tough player for opponents in our league over the next four years.
On conference goals: We're taking every game one game at a time, but as you look at the conference schedule, you've got to play eight on the road, eight at home, and if we can go and do some things on this road trip, we put ourselves in a great position to have a shot at hosting a game (in the first round of the OVC Championship Tournament as one of the top four seeds). Right now, we're tied for fifth, one game out of fourth. Tennessee-Martin is fourth, so we have a chance to beat them at our place; we'll play them again. So, we kind of control our own destiny at this point as far as that goes, and that is crucial.
Winning the regular-season conference title would be great, a fantastic thing for our young people to achieve, but the most important thing right now, in our minds, is hosting that first-round game, and hopefully, being one of the top two or three seeds, where you've got a chance. Everybody in our league is going to be tough in the tournament, but you've got a chance to win that game, get to Nashville, and once you're playing on a neutral court in a Final Four situation, anything can happen. The way we shoot the ball, there's no question that people will not be looking forward to playing us in the tournament because a team that can shoot it this well can beat you on any given night. That is the main goal right now, to host the first round of the conference tournament.
On that being a step in rebuilding the program: Coach Felton really doesn't like to look at things in "steps" like that. She wants to win the conference championship this year and get it done. She wants to win every night out, but realistically, we haven't been to Nashville in quite a while (2000). We need to get back there and set ourselves up for a legitimate chance to win a conference championship in the tournament and go on to the NCAA Tournament. If that happens, it's just going to help us build things for the future with recruiting, with just the mental attitude of our student-athletes. There's nothing like playing for a championship and, until you're there in Nashville, ready to go, you're not playing for that championship. So, we're excited about that.
