Murray State University Athletics
Women's Basketball Media Conference
2/12/2007 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Lady Racer head coach Joi Felton addressed the weekly media conference.
Opening statement
It's good to get back on the winning track. We had a good outing at Jacksonville State last weekend, and then, to come home and win those two home games was huge for us, because in our quest for a championship, we really feel like we have to take care of our home court. We dropped one to Austin Peay, so that was kind of a letdown, but our kids did an excellent job of coming out and following the game plan in both games this week, and I was really proud of that.
We won the rebounding battle in both games, and that's something we've been trying to emphasize all year. Finally, I think it's starting to sink in, that that's what it's going to take for us to win. Defensively, we did a good job overall. We had some periods in both of those games where we kind of had a letoff. That was kind of disappointing, but overall, I was really proud of our effort and proud of the way they came out with aggressiveness and some fire and energy.
It seems like your team does a good job of having a good game, and then carrying that energy over to the next game.
In some instances, yes, but in most instances, it was like when we had that big road win at Samford, and then came back and had a letdown. But, for those last three games -- and the fashion that we beat them was really big -- I hope that's something we can carry over. We're looking at a team in Tennessee State this week that is going to come in with a lot of confidence, trying to get a spot in the OVC tournament. That's what we're trying to get our kids to understand, that Eastern Illinois, Tennessee State -- they're fighting for a spot in the tournament, so they're going to come in here with their "A" game. We have got to be on our toes and alert and aggressive, and we can't take anybody for granted. We've got to play every gamelike it's the last one we're going to be able to play. They really took heed to that Thursday and Saturday, and hopefully, that will continue.
It seems like the defense is a lot better. Talk about what has changed there.
That's one things since I've been here: We've always had teams that could score, and we have not done as well defensively. That's my fault. That's something that we have to emphasize, and going into this year, I told my coaching staff that that was our No. 1 priority to emphasize, that every day, if we have 45 minutes to spend most of that on defense. I just think that everybody wants to play offense, everybody wants to come into the gym and shoot. Defensively, our kids have taken a lot more pride this year in getting defensive stops. We've had a couple of big games down the stretch where it came down to a defensive stop, and we got it. That builds confidence, and it builds a sense of belief that defensive rebounding will win a championship.
I think it starts with our perimeter defense, and Alaina Lee and Shaleea Petty have been mainstays. It starts with them, and it usually starts with Alaina, because she usually guards the opposing point guard. I just think that that tenacity that she brings is really something that her teammates feed off of. Our post defense is getting better. We've still got work to do. We've had a couple of game where we've gotten backed down in the post. That's something I challenged Joi (Scott) and the rest of our post players on. They've got to step up and not let that happen so easily. That's our focus.
These two teams coming up have really strong players in Oby Okafor at Tennessee State and Rachel Galligan, a 6-2 kid at Eastern Illinois. We'll have our hands full in the paint. The main thing we emphasized after the game the other night was defending the paint, whether you're a guard defending penetration or a post player, not letting them just take a layup every time down. That's kind of our theme right now defensively: defending the paint.
Tell us a little more about Tennessee State.
I think in the first half of that game (at TSU on Jan. 4), it was a five-point game, and Tennessee State is a team that is going to be confident. They've got two players who are playing extremely well: Kendra Appling and Oby Okafor. We have a lot of respect for what they're doing. They beat Tennessee-Martin by almost 30 (61-35 on Feb. 8). They're going to press a lot, they are one of the top teams in the league in steals, they press and want to steal it and try to get in transition and shoot layups. They're physical, and we have struggled at times with people that kind of knock us around inside, and we've got to expect that if we want to go out and be successful. I think our kids are fired up. They know that we've got opportunity after opportunity, and we can't control what happens with other teams, whether it be SEMO, Morehead, whoever it is. We just have to take care of business, especially at home.
They have improved tremendously. Last year, they had seven or eight freshmen, so those kids are older; they played quite a bit last year, and they have that experience. It's kind of like Amber Guffey for us. As good as she was as a freshman and as much as she did for us, she's even better this year because she's gotten a lot more game experience.
Amber was struggling a bit earlier, but it looks likes she's found her way out of that.
Amberis a kid who is very unselfish, unselfish to a point where we pull our hair out. We have to beg her to shoot. You don't really have to beg kids to shoot. A lot of kids, you have to tone them down and not shoot, but Amber is somebody who we constantly have to remind day in and day out at practice that she's got to shoot open shots. We need her to shoot those shots, because that opens things up on the inside. She's always going to pass first, and she'll probably always be that way, but every day in practice, we remind her that she passes up open looks, and we stop right there and let her know that she's got to look and take that shot. She's a great player, and she's got a lot of vision on the court. She can see everything real well, but that's the No. 1 thing we're trying to get her to do going down the stretch, is take open shots.
